4 April 2020, Day 25 of the Global Pandemic (According to WHO—or is it WHOM?):

My bandanna slips, baring my nostrils to the world. 

The knot behind my head is too loose; but it feels indecent, somehow, to untie and re-tie in public. So I shove the cloth up over my nose, clamp it there under my bifocals, snag a cart, and head into Hyvee. 

Just a quick in-and-out, to pick up a few essentials. I push the cart into the liquor department, heading for the red wines. OOPS! Blue arrows have been taped on the floor, making each aisle a one-way street. Of course. This is so shoppers won’t accidentally come within six feet of each other. 

In nautical terms, they want us to be unfathomable.

A very sensible precaution, in my view. I push my cart down the wrong aisle, all the way  to the back of the store, then swing around an end-cap, and voilà! Red wine. 

Is it the same instinct that impels so many fellow citizens to stock up on toilet paper, which has reduced us to drinking cheap wine? I  pick up a couple of ten-dollar red blends for those special, romantic dinners (take-out beef bourguignon in a plastic tray, with baguette, from La Brioche) and a gallon jug of burgundy for all other occasions. With bottles rattling in my cart, I follow the blue arrows up the aisle to exit the liquor department. OOOPS! A man stands there, buying beer at the liquor department register. He must not need any dry groceries. 

No Fathoming Allowed

A big, round sticker on the floor says, “MAINTAIN 6-FT DISTANCE.” There is not room to go around the man, whose large purchase may take some time to ring up. I reverse course, go the wrong way down the red wine aisle, wrap two aisles over to the next outbound lane, and then full steam ahead. 

But, soft! What light down yonder brandy aisle breaks? It is a twenty-something woman, idling, eenymeenying between Korbel and Christian Brothers. Will it be this one, or that? She picks up a bottle, shifts her weight from one hip to the other, puts it back. Maybe . . . another brand entirely?

Back down the aisle the wrong way again, two more aisles over, and I gallop out of the liquor department to freedom. It’s a good thing liquor stores in this state have plenty of aisles.

I head for the main part of the supermarket. OOOOPS! My bandanna slips down again. Why is this so tough? If a moron like Liberty Valance could do this, certainly I can get the hang of it. I shove the gaudy rag back over my nose and clamp it even firmer with my glasses. For good measure, I twist the knot in back once and tuck it under itself. That’ll do it, I’m almost sure.

Now for the groceries. This store has a complex floor layout; even with its extravagant overhead signs, I often struggle to find what I am seeking. Today, that struggle is squared, or maybe cubed, by the blue arrows on the floor. Two or three times I find myself going the wrong way. It’s hard to remember not to just turn up, or down, the aisle where you suspect your item may have been hidden.

The Precious Fathom

I console myself by noting that half of the many shoppers seem to be entirely unaware of the blue arrows. Or maybe they just don’t care. Half of the shoppers, like me, conscientiously struggle to maintain that precious fathom of clearance. 

When you are in an aisle, you don’t want to take much time picking out your item. Other people are piling up behind you. Nobody wants to be responsible for squeezing past someone else and maybe exhaling at point-blank range. So you move fast, to prevent pile-ups.

I loop back around and skim the bakery needs aisle again, looking for yeast. It seems there is none to be had. Yeast is one of those things, like toilet paper, that new-minted survivalists feel compelled to hoard. 

OOOOOPS! My face covering slips again. Even the dim-witted Billy the Kid passed Bandanna 101 in Outlaw School. Why can’t I make it work? Quite a few people wear a scarf, handkerchief, or bandanna over nose and mouth. None of their face coverings fall down. What’s the matter with me? 

A few people wear manufactured-looking masks. They’d better not be hogging those special N-95s that all the medical people need. Are these people too good to wrap a sock or muffler around their head, like the rest of us? 

Quite a few people still wear no face covering at all. Just a day or two ago, that was me; but now I’m hip. Not that my bandanna will protect me from the virus; it’s meant to keep me from giving other people the virus. Not that I have the virus. How could I? I hardly go anywhere. But the good doctors on TV are now saying we should wear them. I’m not really infectious, but one should set a good example for others.

Grocery Workers: Essential, Fathomless

It may be casually noted that no store employees wear face coverings of any kind. Also, they frequently violate the Six-Foot Rule. That’s because they’re trying, desperately, to get the shelves stocked. A valiant young man arrives with a whole cartload of eggs to put in the case just as I take the last dozen. He’s doing his best, but he has lost sight of Social Distancing. Well, of course, these folks are official store employees. So I guess that’s all right, then.

Okay, no yeast. No Fudgsicles either, but as I recall, Hyvee always had a hard time keeping those in stock, even back in Pre-Pandemic Days. I’ve got most of the other stuff, including a 31.5-pound bag of Purina for Lacey and Midnight. 

At this juncture I feel compelled to note, just for the record, Dear Reader, that if one really strictly followed the blue arrows on the floor, one would be forever enmeshed in a sort of medieval labyrinth—stuck forever, like Charlie on the MTA—with no way to traverse to the cash registers. 

Taking my heart in my hands, I jump the queue—or, at least, violate the blue arrows—skirting around the whole produce section, steering a wide berth from any other shoppers, and streaking into the clearly-marked lateral blue-arrow lane near the check-out aisles. 

Here, there is more surrealism at which to marvel. A sign says: “DO NOT PUT YOUR ITEMS ON THE CONVEYOR. WE SANITIZE BETWEEN CUSTOMERS.” Sure enough, after the preceding customer clears the lane at least two fathoms ahead of me, the young man at the register runs the conveyor clear around twice, swabbing it down with something he squirts out of a spray bottle. At last it is deemed sanitary enough, and he says, “Go ahead.” 

Nothing to Sneeze At

I plunk my items down on the conveyor, leaving my huge bag of dog food in the cart. The young man tries to scan the dog food with his hand-held scanner as usual, but OOOOOOPS! He can’t cantilever it out over the conveyor far enough. Its cord is hung up with a bunch of other cords. That’s because the bracket that holds the hand scanner is cramped by the newly-installed plexiglass shield that is meant to protect me and the checker-outer— from each other, presumably.

Oh, what a relief! I may now sneeze to my heart’s content. There’s a sheet of plexiglass to protect the essential grocery worker. I have half a mind to give it a good blast—but, alas! no sneeze in me yearns to break forth. Better luck next time.

Forty-five minutes after stopping for a quick in-and-out, I trundle my cart out of the store and OOOOOOOPS! my bandanna slips again. But no matter, I’m in the open air. 

Where are Jesse and Frank James, when a guy needs a lesson in kerchief-tying?

#

Something tells me we’re not in Kansas anymore. We’re not even in Wisconsin anymore.

Be of good cheer, Dear Reader. Even this cannot last forever.

Blessings,

Larry F. Sommers, Your New Favorite Writer

Author of Price of Passage—A Tale of Immigration and Liberation.

Price of Passage

Norwegian Farmers and Fugitive Slaves in Pre-Civil War Illinois

(History is not what you thought!)