Schools are closed. Bars and restaurants are supposed to close at the end of business today. Hey, what about restaurants that are open 24/7? Do they have to abide by the ban if they don’t close today? Food and paper products are in short supply. I know my family is debating if they should eat me now while I am still fat in order to conserve the rest of the food in the house.
I took matters into my own hands last night at 10PM as I went out to feed. Just to clarify, I pretty much self-quarrantine every winter after dark. Last night I felt like I had been turned into a coronavirus zombie, going out after dark to feed when there would be no lines. Oops, I was an hour early. It turns out that many others had the same idea around 10PM. I kept to myself, huddled in a fetal position on a barren shelf in the canned vegetable aisle next to a solitary can of okra until the crowd cleared a bit by 11PM.
This is one of the first sights that greeted me when I walked in …
Want bread? You’re out of luck. Want a peanut butter & jelly sandwich? Hmmm, how about a PB&J tortilla?
I did get called a hero by my wife for finding some ramen noodles.
But then my fortunes changed for the worse. I got in the wrong checkout line. Somehow, the people in front of me had been able to fill their carts to the point of overflowing while I debated what meals could be made from the gum, lard, and flour I was able to find.
And then, I decided that I didn’t want the employee to touch my items during checkout. So I broached social norms and took my 60 or so items to an empty 20 item or less self-checkout. Sure, it took some balancing skill to fit the 60 items on the small platform made to hold less than 20. And I’m sure that people were shooting daggers at me with their eyes as they counted my items.
I didn’t care. I did what I had to do to postpone my family’s eventual descent into cannibalism, at my expense. Last night I was proud to be a coronavirus zombie.
Jim Flanigan Looks at the World 