I’m honestly curious how many people who read this, whether regularly or just once in a blue moon, thought I was obsessing over nothing over the last week. You can tell me. I won’t be mad. Messaging was pretty messed up for weeks. I think the word is starting to coalesce now into something along the lines of “holy crap, y’all, it’s so much worse than we wanted to believe. Don’t touch anybody or anything anymore!” I wondered myself whether I was out of line for doing all my grocery shopping for the month in the span of two trips. (I already had one and a half Costco packs of toilet paper, because that’s the kind of person I am. I mostly bought food.) I let myself go ahead and use some of the “prepper” food, and then I chastised myself for getting into it too soon. I am completely in two minds about the whole thing, and I just can’t decide how scared to be.
It was probably the sales meeting we had in early January when I first paid attention to the word coronavirus. One of our agents had a sniffle, and she said something about not having it. I thought she was just making a joke about the latest scare, and I think I might have chuckled. It was totally outside of my consciousness at that point. I hadn’t read a word about it, nor watched a single news segment on it, and didn’t for a solid month after that. I thought it was something people were overreacting to, and I ignored it. I’m not ignoring it anymore.
I went to get my next dose of Botox for migraine this morning. (None too soon... I’ve had headaches for weeks as the last one wore off.) I didn’t get my usual wave of texts, emails, and robocalls reminding me of the appointment, and I wondered whether it was still on. I have three more things coming over the next seven days, and I catch myself holding my breath and stressing that any one of them could be canceled for the pandemic. I hope not. Tomorrow’s is no big deal, but next week are ones I’ve really been anticipating. I don’t want to overtax the medical offices around town, but I also don’t want to delay things that have already been put off too long while I didn’t know any better.
I noticed something on the counter at my appointment this morning. They had created cups with labels reading “clean pens” and “dirty pens.” There was a person wearing nitrile gloves wiping down everything while I was checking in. They are taking this very seriously now. I had a conversation with a friend from Rotary who suggested we should change how we get our food every week while this is happening, no longer touching the spoons ourselves. She thinks we should have our caterers earring gloves and putting the food on our plates. Her reasoning is that germs can live on these surfaces for like half an hour, and the average age of our Rotarians is well north of the line for increased risk of complications from Covid-19. We have no business grabbing the utensils ourselves. My friend suggested I pass along my agreement with her proposition to the club president. I haven’t yet, while I let myself mull it over. I probably will, though.
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