Into the Breach Again

Today was another retail excursion after two weeks of being sequestered. That's about our interval, based on the last two forays. Again, prescription refills triggered our trip into town.

This time we were short on chicken and fresh produce. We have plenty of everything else for the most part, except for a couple of deliveries of paper products that are en route. Overall, the only things we're lacking are disinfectant wipes. They seem to be impossible to get these days. We can't even get put on a waiting list anywhere. It's very frustrating.

The stores were not as tapped out in certain of the aisles, though the usual suspects (again, paper products, bread flour, pasta) are MIA. The stores weren't too crowded, but I would say more than half the people in the five stores we went to wore masks. The rest, well, just let's say they are dumber than dirt and that insults dirt...in other words, covidiots.

Why wouldn't people (perfectly healthy, mind you) not wear face masks unless they were so dense or so arrogant that they don't care whether they may be infecting other people?

Today was the last day we used improvised face masks. We bought a couple of cloth ones made by a lady in our community for five dollars each. And talk about well-made! She has a nice little studio in her golf cart garage where she does all her sewing and such. Quite a set-up, my wife said.

Now we're set for our next retail excursion, which will be in a little over a week when my wife has to go get her blood test. Being a cancer survivor, she has to routinely make sure her cancer markers aren't off. While they're not a perfect indicator, they are definitely an important part of her diagnostics.

More than likely, she'll do a teleconference with her oncologist to go over the results instead of going in. That's currently scheduled for a week after her blood test. After that, we'll probably make a stop or two, but it won't be a major shopping day.

Yours from the front,

Michael

When Will It Be Normal Again?

If you've been reading all the COVID-19 coverage online or watching cable news, you must've seen a title of an article or segment that opines about when will we be normal again? As if "normal" is the same for everyone, but I get the point. Let me start with the answer, then the analysis.

When will we be normal again? Never.

Seriously, never. Or at least never in our lifetime, though a lot of people will eventually return to some variation of their previous "normal." But, unless your head is completely full of air or rocks, you must know that if a pandemic like this could happen and it's not that fatal, imagine one where it is not only virulent but kills a large number of those who become infected.

So, we have to accept the fact that there will be a new normal but even how that will look is hard to predict.

Think about dining out in a restaurant. How many do you go to that are packed cheek to jowl with tables and customers and waitstaff? Probably too many to count, right? If you were the owner, how would you reconfigure it?

Here's what I would do:

• Reservations-only seating
• Staff must be checked daily for temperature and perhaps O2 levels
• Customers must be checked for temperature and O2 levels as well
• While in the restaurant, waitstaff must wear masks and surgical gloves (same for kitchen staff, too)
• Remove half the tables or more to allow for 6' minimum social distancing
• Tables, chairs, and other surfaces need to be wiped down thoroughly after each customer leaves

And even this isn't perfect. What if an asymptomatic person comes into the restaurant? No fever, O2 saturation levels are fine, but they're shedding viruses left and right--how do you prevent this? Sure, on-the-spot testing would help, but even if it was available, who could afford to do that every day for every person passing through the doors?

This is just one example. Think of your own and then you start to see the sheer magnitude that this challenge presents.

So "normal," as we used to know if, is history. What happens going forward is up to us as a race because just returning to our old ways will only open the doors for the same kind of pandemic or even worse--the one that will take out humanity altogether.

And what's the most asinine thing I see now are the covidiots protesting that their liberties are being assaulted. My only words to them are these: get with the program or get ready to lose you life or that of your loved one.

Yours in quarantine,

Michael

True Confessions of a Flour Buyer

We did our twice-monthly shopping trip into town yesterday. With our bandana face masks on our faces and surgical gloves on our hands, we stopped store after store to get all the items we would need for a couple more weeks.

We couldn't find many paper products, particularly toilet paper. After more than a month of this, I've concluded that some covidiot is hoarding it all. With any luck, they'll be stuck with it until the end of their days, though more than likely they're selling it on the black market for 10x what it cost him/her.

Think about that. Toilet paper unavailable for over a moment. It boggles the mind.

At one store we went to, a downscale store that caters to the Spanish-speaking community, we hit the jackpot. I was in one aisle, my wife was in another. She hurried to find me to tell me that they had a lot of all-purpose flour on their shelves!

Excited, I followed her and sure enough, there were several bags sitting there. I took a look to make sure there were no signs and picked up three bags. Then we went to check out.

As my masked cashier rang me up, she narrowed her eyes disapprovingly.

"Only two bags," she said.
"Two? There was no sign," I replied. I turned to my wife. "Did you see any sign?"
"No, there was no sign."

The cashier just shook her head and rang us up anyway. I apologized profusely, but I don't think she believed I was being sincere.

Do you know that bothered me for the rest of the day? This is a small store. The same people work there all the time. Save for the fact I was wearing a mask, this cashier knows me. I'm so embarrassed, I don't know if I want to go back there again.

Of course, that's silly. We love that place (the prices are great and they have a wonderful selection of produce). But still, I feel bad even though what I did wasn't intentional.

Okay, now that I've confessed my sins to you, gentle reader (👋), I'll move onto the rest of our trip.

The summary we were able to score chicken, steaks, and ground beef, along with fresh produce. No TP, as noted. No Excedrin, but there was a manufacturing issue before the COVID-19 pandemic broke out (we ended up getting the store brand from Walgreens). No Chlorox II, for some reason. No hydrogen peroxide, either.

So, reviewing all this, I'd say we did pretty good. Now in a couple of weeks, when prescriptions need to be refilled, we'll be going back out again.

Yours in retail bliss,

Michael