This is a post about our adventures sheltering in place. I went into the grocery store with a face mask on and a zip lock back of sanitizing wipes to wipe down the buggy and anything else I might touch. Yes these are all first world problems, sure, potentially life or death, but to think of buying groceries as a life or death activity is hard for the mind to comprehend.
So what does buying groceries look like in a pandemic? You will notice shortages of things you buy either because folks are buying too much in a panic (toilet paper and white rice for example) or because companies have had to shut down due to the pandemic affecting workers. The first two weeks of the start of “sheltering in place” meant schools closed and so parents bought grocery stores out to be sure they had lunch meat, bread, and chips to feed their kids stuck at home. By the third week this had slowed some but only the ones who arrived at stores early found toilet paper, rice, or dry beans. So far bread yeast has yet to make its return to shelves at a time I am available.
A friend who works for Frito-Lay says sales during March and April are double what they normally are in these months and they are actually having a hard time keeping shelves stocked with junk food. I have done my best to keep the chip companies in business and because of it, our house has been successfully gaining weigh so we won’t be able to out run the zombies when this turns into the apocalypse.
As I enter the store an “associate” uses her iPad to notate another person has entered the store and a few have trickled out. The watcher at the front door (they don’t have people greeters any more and so they have a floater who kind of guards the door, interrogates folks if they have items not in a bag demanding to see their receipt, or who tells folks they have to go to customer service). She asks me if I need a buggy and tells me she just cleaned “this” one. I take out my own disinfecting wipe and wipe down the areas I usually wind up holding the cart by. Sometimes I push, sometimes I pull, and always I use the child seat for the fragile items such as eggs and bread. It is my system. I am all about having a system for everything even if it only makes sense to me.
I have a medical looking mask on. This causes folks to either give me extra space or strange looks. I have had this box of masks for about five years as I use them every flu season occasionally as folks in our house get sick from whatever is going around. I have been a mild germophobe for about ten years. So it seems silly to throw them out and with the layer of dust that was on them, they are probably not ready for medical use so at best they are more like a bad Halloween mask than useful. But thankfully it gives me a false sense of security allowing me to go into the dangerous world of grocery shopping. When in doubt, I break out the hand sanitizer in case I have touched something horrible and just don’t know it. I search all over the store to find my items. In these times, when you can’t find the bargain brand of something, you have to make judgement call, do I buy the premium brand just so I have it. All of the store brands are in short supply. #theseFirstWorldProblems Planter’s Mix Nuts instead of Sam’s Choice it is.
I am freaked out when I get to the checkout. No cashiers have any masks on or gloves (I don’t have gloves either but they are touching everybody’s stuff so they should have gloves). Yes, we are attempting to follow the markers on the floor that say stay six feet away from others but others are less informed about what six feet looks like distance wise. As my stuff is checked out, we reach the sodas which have a coupon on them (buy two six-packs, save one dollar) and I have the hardest time getting these flimsy coupons off the sodas but a dollar is a dollar and so I insist on doing this. The cashier helps me but I feel bad. What if I am infected and I just don’t know? I don’t have any symptoms but I don’t want to hurt anyone. I don’t want to share my germs with anyone. Is this how we end the world?
When I get home, Donna and I have a process. I take the bags in, set them on the dining room table, she takes the groceries out of the bags and wipes them down with disinfecting clothes shoving the clean pile to one side. So then I begin putting the “clean” groceries away. While supposedly the chances of infection from your groceries are limited, we take these precautions and yes, we throw the plastic bags away deciding our lives are more important than the environment at least today.