The Grocery Store and the Grumpy Woman

Before the pandemic I was the woman who loved to go grocery shopping. I loved reading labels and browsing the international aisle where it was my mission to bring home something I’ve never tried before. Of course, now we’re encouraged not to stick around inside the store any longer than necessary and to not touch stuff we’re not going to purchase. The Covid-19 cases and deaths have been spiking again in my state, probably---I'm guessing---from people getting careless around family and friends or getting pandemic fatigue so yesterday when I went shopping I was on high alert.

I was shocked to see so many shelves empty again…like they were at the beginning of the pandemic. Only instead of hand sanitizer, toilet paper, peanut butter and flour being in short supply it was canned goods, creamers and hand soaps among other things. There was so much open space in the canned vegetable section that I panicked and bought a two cans of Lima beans. I haven’t eaten Lima beans since the Carter administration. But I heard the voices in my head of my parents talking about the hardships and shortages they lived with during WWII and I ended up pandemic buying things I don't need in brands I've never used.

It’s just so weird shopping now, mask in place while trying to stay six feet from others wearing masks. And for the very few not wearing masks I try to hold my breath when passing by them. Most of them give off such negative vibes that I bristle at the sight of those unmasked faces. Yes, yes, I know some people have health issues that prevent them from wearing a mask but when I tried to look up what health conditions we’re talking about I found out that no U.S. health agency has specified any particular health issue where exemptions should apply other than being unconscious or otherwise not be able to remove a mask on your own. Each state has their own ambiguous or vague mask exemption clause if they mandate wearing them at all.

I was in a checkout line when I got irritated with the young guy in front of me who had his nose buried so far in his phone that he wasn’t moving forward when the line ahead of him moved. There was easily fifteen feet between him and the next shopper. He was either playing Candy Crush or sexting with his girlfriend and since I’ve been reading a lot of romance books lately I opted to believe that he was doing the latter. So I cut him some lack and allowed his chuckles to add fuel to my imagination, giving me more patience while I wished I was tall enough to read over his shoulder. And it was a good thing I did put on my serenity hat because his eyes barely left his phone as he got checked out and he pushed his cart out of the lane. He’s probably still sexting at the front of the store, where I last saw him. He had beer in his cart, chips and condoms. (Okay, I made the condoms up but he really was still in the store with his phone when I left.)

There were eight lanes open at the store and I got the one where a deaf mute guy was working the cash register. I pitched a mini-fit inside my head because since the pandemic began my social life depends on getting a little friendly conversation from store personal and this guy wouldn't even make eye contact. I’ve been through his lane before but this time I was a Needy Nellie and he wasn’t going to be the one to serve me a heaping of much needed but meaningless chit-chat. And apparently I had used up all my patience on lover-boy and his phone so when the cashier took all my frozen food out of the store-provided clear plastic bags to keep them cold and he didn’t bother to put them back in after scanning them---he just chucked them into a paper bag---I was super-sized annoyed. But even if I had complained and he could read lips there was no way he could have done it through a mask. When I bag my frozen stuff I line up all the codes so they can easily be seen and scanned with a hand scanner and in all the years I’ve been doing that, no one have ever taken my frozen food out of those clear plastic bags. I truly understand why the guy avoided making eye contact. He probably sees a lot of annoyed and angry faces and has no idea why. And don't remind me that I need to make allowances for the possibility that his hand scanner didn't work; I'm holding on to my grumpy mode for a little while longer.

For a while the store had a cashier who had no arm from the elbow down. I had gone through her line a couple of times before I realized she was scanning and bagging groceries one-handed and was doing it more efficiently that many two handed workers. She was fast and had a friendly persona and I wished she’d stayed around. She was inspirational. Back in those days, I had a book on how to do things one-handed because I was trying to learn how so I could teach my husband those skills after his stroke. It took a lot practice to do what she accomplished. 

Back then (and maybe now) the store took part in a program that helps physically and mentally disabled people train for various jobs around the community, trying to find them a good fit. The program, rather than the employer insures, pays and manages any issues that come up with their charges. I used to know a twenty-something girl with Down Syndrome in the program and she got a permanent job offer putting parts in plastic bags. She absolutely loved her job. The deaf-mute guy, if he's in that program, will get his work evaluated after x-number of weeks and be written up as needing to learn to make eye contact. If he can't do it, then they'd move him to a job that doesn't put him face-to-face with the public. And if I was in a program  like that I’d have to work on being less grumpy while shopping during a pandemic. 

There I did it, I wrote my grumpy mood away. I found my empathy and reminded myself that the world does not revolve around my wants and needs. And for the bonus round, with any luck I might discover that I actually like Lima beans. ©

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.  ©