A trip to the grocery shouldn’t be an adventure, especially one of the un-fun kind.
Last week I went out to pick up some prescriptions. It was the first time I’d been in a grocery (or indeed, any enclosed space other than my home) for over a month. I went out of necessity but tried to enjoy getting out of the house.
Then all the preparation came in.
Getting out of my car was like playing a neverending game of “the floor is lava”. Anything I touched might have covid19 on it but I couldn’t tell so gloves and masks were the order of the day. But even the most comfortable mask is smothering. I had to breathe through my mouth and restrain myself from touching my face to readjust it.
Even with gloves, I had to pay careful attention to what I touched: was the door automatic or did I have to open it myself? If I did, did someone touch it before me? Was my credit card already out or did I have to fish around in my purse with possibly-already-contaminated gloved hands? Did I swipe it myself or did the cashier? Was the cashier gloved? Did she change gloves after the person (6 feet) ahead of me in line?
And worst of all, did I inadvertently brush up against someone or something while I was out, necessitating not only glove disposal and furious handwashing when I got home but a change of clothes and possibly a shower as well?
In short, an activity that was so innocuous as to be forgettable in February is now an exercise in constant vigilance, and if I relax any of the dozen steps involved I risk infection or transmission of a Big Viral Bad the likes of which we’ve not seen in a century. And it’s fucking exhausting.
Maybe you aren’t this careful. Maybe you’re in a less densely populated part of the country and less likely to encounter coronavirus in everyday settings. Maybe you and yours are in good enough health that you’re not worried about catching this thing. Maybe you’re already isolated enough you’re not likely to inadvertently spread this to someone more vulnerable if you do get it.
If so, I wish you well. But I’m in a fairly dense suburb in a state with enough cases that an ice rink the next county over has been commandeered as a temporary morgue. I can’t afford to let my guard down. And increasingly the number of things I have to pay attention to Or Else is making even taking a walk less and less appealing.
I’m sorry that you have to go to such lengths to protect yourself but I’m also glad that you’re sensible enough to go to such lengths to protect yourself.
My flextime working hours have me leaving work late enough that the two walking distance big grocery stories have few customers in them. (Just need an idiot test at the door to exclude the ones who can’t grasp what the arrows on the floors mean)
Working at home tomorrow and Friday on a French collection for a new school plus work’s four-day-week has now shifted to us being closed Mondays in May (April was closed on Fridays). So basically looking at five days without an alarm clock!!! Just hope I have enough coffee …
I’m glad y’all have flextime – and enough room that you can spread out. I predict that social distancing will spell the (temporary?) end of open-plan offices, and/or flex time until everything can be reworked with actual walls!
In Maryland things are sorta opening back up. Outdoor sports like fishing and golf have the green light as long as social distancing is maintained – with the understanding that if there’s another spike of infections or people get sloppy about the 6 foot/mask indoors rule that this opening will be cycled back. My workplace is starting to make inquiries into opening the offices back up, but I want to telework as long as they’ll let me until there are proven therapies or a vaccine.
The advantage of working in a warehouse; it’s pretty much all open space so we all had room to spread out (plus the boss taped flattened out furniture boxes to our desks to make walls). Our HR person has always been hardcore about regular labour laws so the distancing thing happened immediately and is enforced. Happily our break room is also large with big tables so it’s been easy to enforce distance in there as well (chairs are placed at mandatory two metre distances and not allowed to be moved; lots of disinfectant sprays and cloths provided to wipe everything down when you’re finished coffee break or lunch). Plus there’s a ten-gallon drum of sanitizer with ladles and funnels on a cart for us to refill our own containers.
It’s nice to have bosses who care. š
My flextime predates social distancing by a year; it was an experiment to see if shifting my mornings to later waking would help alleviate my migraines and it’s definitely helped. The whole natural night owl being forced to work early bird hours thing. It just now has the additional advantage of putting me in the grocery store around 6:00 p.m. (southern Alberta is weird and has this sacred dinner hour where all the stores empty out; I’ve been in malls on Christmas Eve when the stores suddenly are empty and the restaurants are packed with lineups)