Friday, May 8, 2020

The 400 Dollar Store

Inspirational song: Add It Up (Violent Femmes)

Today Colorado moved from Stay-at-home to Safer-at-home. Theoretically, we could have all gotten together to play our games in the same room. We had plans to. And then at the very last moment, they fell apart. We finally had the chance to put up to ten of us in the same place, and the person who originally offered to host said "Oh, I forgot, can we skip it tonight?" So much for socializing. How sad are we?

We had about six days' worth of canned dog food left as of this morning. It was time to brave the wild frontier of Costco. We weren't actually out of a whole lot of other things, but these days, one stocks up when the opportunity presents itself. I experienced no small level of anxiety and outright fear at the prospect of being out in that sort of crowd, and it was definitely a challenge keeping good distance between other shoppers. When I couldn't avoid squeezing past other people, I tried to hold my breath (even under the mask), turn my face away from them, and not actually touch anyone else's body or cart. I have no idea whether I succeeded every time.

We had no self control. I actively discouraged it. If there was an item I thought we might run out of in the next two months, into the cart it went. Or into the second cart. Yes, it took two. It was a good thing that my car is of modest size, or we would have spent the kids' inheritance loading up on pandemic food supplies. Once we had paid and approached the line to leave, we had to steer off to one side and I waited next to the services brochures while he made an appointment to have his snow tires removed. I listened to a lot of people chat to each other when they passed me. One woman was saying to her partner, "This is what happens when you don't go to Costco for three months. This is how you end up with flatbeds." I saw her partner was also pushing a full flatbed cart, and I laughed and said, "And that's how we filled two buggies." Say what you will, we are not going to run out of chocolate syrup or ketchup well until next year. Or the one after it.

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