Going Rogue

I was as giddy as a virgin at the Hunk-O-Mania Strip Club when I woke up this morning, knowing I was going to be a premeditated lawbreaker for the first time in my life. Yup, I was going to take my pandemic protective gear on the road. I had my story rehearsed in case I got stopped, “Officer, I’m going to Walgreens to get some allergy medication. That’s allowed. Right?” Or maybe I’d haul the grocery list out of my purse left over from the last time I went and use it as proof that I was going to one of the two approved locations old people without essential jobs are supposed to point their cars towards. It was raining out so I breathed easy, figuring I’d have to be doing something grossly wrong on the road for a cop to pull me over and even then, they’re not giving tickets out for a first offense. They're not even making random stops to check on pandemic run-aways. A lawn care service owner, though, tested that second offense rule. He’d been reported for leaving fliers in mailboxes and was given a warning. But he didn’t stop. The second time he was caught he was given a $500 fine and his name was plastered all over the media. Honestly, who reports a guy for doing something as petty as leaving a piece of paper in mailboxes? Maybe I’m just being a softie after my own “crime spree?”

It all started earlier in the week when I got a call from Levi’s groomer about his upcoming appointment. Other places where I’d had appointments---at the hair salon, the dentist, the doctor and for a couple of senior hall lectures---were all canceled via a personal phone call so I was pretty sure that’s what the groomer was going to say. Imagine my surprise when the shop owner told me they are still keeping all their standing appointments for terrier class dogs, which covers Levi my Might Schnauzer. They normally have six groomers working six days a week but the shop owner himself cuts the terriers breeds so, he figured he could be safe with only him and his wife in the place. They had just ended a two week quarantine, he said, after returning from vacation and the shop had been closed for a total of four weeks. Levi would be the second dog to cross the threshold. 

I can be as selfish as the next guy so I turned a blind-eye to the groomer breaking the law by conducting non-essential business. I wasn't looking forward to cutting Levi's hair at home, knowing it would be like putting a single pair of handcuffs on an octopus and thinking that would keep the cephalopod from using its other tentacles to suck your eye balls out or create a wind tunnel between your ears. Been there, done that with wiggle wormy Levi. For some reason he trusts Glen to cut his hair and do his manscaping while the guy baby-talks Levi through the whole process. Levi wants me no where near him with a pair of scissors in my hand. Ya, I know, all law breakers can justify their actions. I should have said "no thank you" then planned on shipping Levi out to Montana during sheep sheering season when the pandemic is over.

While Levi was being an unwitting victim of a criminal act, I went across the street to the grocery store hoping to score some toilet paper. No such luck. They said when they get a shipment in, even with limits of one package per shopper, it’s gone in an hour. If you follow a community message board in your town you’d understand how that happens. People are posting time-dated photos of when they see toilet paper on the shelves and people in need are dropping everything they’re doing, jumping in their cars to score a package and the person who gets the last package posts a picture of it. This same message chains happens every day, several times a day. I’m not desperate enough to hang around the message board from daylight to dust to see the first posts live, but that day will come if people don’t start going back to work and doing their business in public bathroom stalls.

I might have gone into that grocery store with a two item list but I bought $70 worth of stuff, mostly meats for the coming apocalypse in our food chain caused by the recent closing of huge meat processing plants in states that didn’t have social distancing in place. Their employees processing beef, pork and poultry were dropping like flies from the Covid-19 virus. “Rates of infection around these plants are higher than those of 75% of other U.S. counties,” one analysis said. I only eat meat a couple of times a week. A little chicken here, a little beef there with some bacon occasionally thrown in between. Since the pandemic started I’ve stockpiled enough beef cuts to reconstruct my own cow. If I liked head cheese, I’d almost be there and I can safely say that day will never come. But I can see a day when I'll be bartering roast beef for toilet paper.

During my day of shameful civil disobedience I also went to the pet store where they had erected a huge acrylic wall at the cash register. A lot of time and effort that went into making that and I couldn’t help wondering if the factories churning them out are working around the clock. I've only been to four places since the lock down started and three had installed these ‘sneeze guards’ around their employees. The dog groomer’s check-in desk being the exception. That one is so tall I can barely see over it. I’m happy to report I wore my face mask everywhere I went, and grocery store even provided plastic gloves for my foray inside. I suppose I should have stood on a soap box and belittled the groomer for enticing me out of the house, but I didn't and I maintained my giddy-to-be-free mood the entire day…until I saw the look in Levi’s eyes when I picked him up and he first noticed my mask and smelled my hand sanitizer. Whatever he was thinking it wasn’t good.  ©