In a pickle at the supermarket
The pandemic has turned me into a doofus.
Before now I would not have a used that word to describe myself. Nerd? Yes. Goofball? Certainly. Mechanically challenged? Duh. But never a doofus. But I’ve landed in this category at this late date, and as with everything else going wrong these days, the virus is to blame.
My doofus phase began the first time I wore a mask in the supermarket. It was sunny that day and I wore sunglasses on the drive over. I put on the mask, walked across the parking lot and into the store, wrestled a cart out of the line and headed for the produce.
By the time I reached the apples, I had the feeling I was under water. I was breathing fine but I felt trapped. When I reached up to pull my mask further over my nose, my hand bumped my sunglasses. I’d forgotten to take them off; with my face fully covered, I might as well have been wearing a space helmet. (I guess it’s true the virus can come in through the eyes, because with the glasses off I was breathing more freely.)
Now for some apples. I pulled a baggie off the roll and went to open it. After smooshing around at the plastic for long seconds, I came to the realization: This cannot be done without saliva.
But how to get some. Should I dive over the mask or under it? And should I even be licking my finger in a public place? And what do people do while leafing through magazines in doctor’s office waiting rooms any more? It’s a pickle.
I went under for a bit of spit, opened the bag, got the apples and moved on to the cereal aisle, where I descended even deeper into doofus. Rolling my cart past the Pop-Tarts, I saw two people and their carts headed toward me. One of the women appeared to be scowling at me, but I couldn’t be sure because half her face was obscured. She moved her cart to the side. The man behind her kept coming toward me.
“Wrong way,” I think he said, but it was muffley behind the mask. Maybe he was saying “Long May,” which yes, we can all agree that was a very long month.
He pointed to the sign on the floor, the one I’d just rolled my cart over. I was a shopping the wrong way down a one-way aisle, doofus supermarket scofflaw that I am.
“Sorry,” I muffled, and went to turn around. But by then a fellow doofus was rolling up behind me, also the wrong way. So there I was, caught in the middle of the aisle with no easy way out. Like I said, a pickle.
There was a bit more fumbling around at the checkout counter, although by then I was more mindful of the floor signs and stayed on my little square until it was my turn. I’m glad there was an employee stationed by the doors to point the right way out, or I might have screwed that up, too.
But I’m getting the hang of it. I’m don’t mind the mask or the one-way aisles. Months into this, I still see lots of shoppers going the wrong way. Maybe the stores should post those signs up higher where we can see them.
Oh, and about those produce baggies. Maybe make them out of thicker plastic. We doofuses will thank you.