0300 … And the world still waits. Wondering what the hell is going on. What’s next. I think everyone is on pins and needles.
Everyone wears masks. People are being arrested for going for a ride. In their own car. With their own family. Meeting in a parking lot to talk but staying away from everyone else. WTH? How quickly we have become a nazi-type state. With curfews. Those arrested are held without bail. Yet convicted — CONVICTED — felons are released from jail and prisons so they don’t get this disease. What logic is this, pray tell?
There are mega-churches all over the country who are meeting for Sunday Worship. Because their faith says they will not get the illness if their faith is strong enough. WTH? So, when they come down with this, then I guess they didn’t believe hard enough? The first case of airborne contracted CoVid19 was from a church choir. They avoided touching and hugging. They avoided physical contact. They did everything right. Just the forced expulsion of air while singing forced the droplets into the air infecting almost everyone in that choir, with about three hospitalized and two dead, as far as I recall. I guess they didn’t have the faith of a mustard seed? Or else they didn’t use the brains God gave them?
I went to the store looking for hand soap — found two small pumps for about twice the price they should be. Almost everyone wore masks. When I had to pass another shopper, I tucked my masked face into the shelves to try to maintain the six feet distance. I wore a glove on my left hand, which became my “dirty” hand. I kept my “clean” hand either in my pocket or grasping the front of my shawl like you see surgery persons do. It took some thinking, but I think it worked out okay. Dirty hand for things other people had to touch — my products I was purchasing — the key pad of the card reader — the bag handles. Clean hand for my phone, my card. I had to pay the power bill, and had the account number on my phone. I showed the lady the number, and she reached for my phone. She REACHED for my phone! Before I knew it, I told her I didn’t want her to touch it.
Then I apologized that I wasn’t that rude under normal circumstances, but these are not normal circumstances, now are they? It protects her from me, as well. She doesn’t know that I don’t have the crap and spreading it all around.
The next day, today, I go into the store again. Today, people are so rude! Either that or I was short tempered myself. I got into a line, and it was closed off in front of me. The only other large-order line had two completely full baskets waiting. The second open line was a 15-limit line. I got to it, started putting my stuff on the conveyor belt, doing a good job not touching the dirty stuff except with my plastic baggied dirty hand. Then he said it. “You have more than 15 items. We might be okay, but you’ll have to explain it to the lady behind you.” I’m afraid I lost it.
I started grabbing my stuff off the belt, throwing them back into the cart. The baggie fell off my hand, and now both hands are dirty hands. Bare hands. I almost cried. The woman behind me didn’t move away. I had to ask her to excuse me, before she would make way for me. Now, the only open large order line was full with THREE full carts. I felt stuck in a dangerous situation, and my behaviour was making things worse. I regret getting so upset.
Finally, another line opened, and I finished the process touching the items with my bare hands, touching my debit card with my dirty bare hands, punching the numbers on the key pad with my bare fingers, and grabbing the dirty plastic bags with my bare hands. My dried out cracked to the point of bleeding bare hands. So, what did I do when I got out to the car? I grabbed a baby wipe, saturated it with Lysol spray, wiped down my hands, my card and my door handle. When I got home, I sprayed bleach cleaner on everything — bologna package; bread bags; spaghetti sauce jars.
Again, there is no excuse for my behaviour. I didn’t cuss out loud, I was very short and curt and my body language was not a happy one. How do I control this?
Tomorrow, we drop off care packages to the two sets of grandkids, perhaps get window kisses. I hope those kids remember this time of their lives. Stories around the campfire will include the Quarantine of 2020, when the entire earth was in lock down. It still makes me wonder what is going on out there while we are all in here?
I need to rack my current short meads, so I can prepare my Coronamel, my Covidomel, and my Quarantinomel. I don’t know what the recipes will be, probably spices. But those are the names of my next three brews.
The Grandmother Club 