Please, Smell My Potatoes!
Welcome to Covid19ville, the land of duplicity, where nothing or everything may or may not be as it seems.
Like many, when COVID-19 first hit, the 20 bazillion grocery stores in my city ran out of toilet tissue within 24 hours. Every store, including the dollar stores, was strugglin’ to stock the white stuff.
I consider myself a glass-half-full kind of person, but at the fifth or sixth store of an early morning search for 2-ply, I stood in front of another empty shelf with a handmade sign that read “Out of Stock”.
Really? This had to be an inside job. It was 6:30 in the freakin’ morning. What time were these people gettin’ up to buy toilet tissue anyway?
Just as the feeling of panic began to circulate somewhere between my stomach and heart, the teenager stocking groceries behind me whispered under his breath, “My mom just makes us take a shower when she forgets to buy toilet tissue.” I laughed out loud. A change in perspective made all the difference. That boy was onto something.
So, over the next few weeks, while people were throwing blows over the 2 items or less limit on toilet paper, I continued to remind myself that good old fashion soap and water would suffice if and when we got down to that last square (even in a house full of teenagers). Thankfully, we never ran out, but I was confident in my plan if we did.
Staying positive in the middle of a pandemic takes work. You have to constantly be on the lookout for little threads of hope that you can tug on from time to time.
Flip the Story
Every day we’re bombarded with news reports on the spread of COVID-19, how many people have been affected, what you should and shouldn’t do, and which politicians are for or against mask mandates, blah, blah, blah. The news cycles are exhausting and they’re only creating a depression factory.
All I want is my life back which I know in all probability will not happen, ever. The permanent mark of this pandemic has seared our consciousness in irrevocable ways. The only semblance of normalcy that we can hope to secure at this point is our own. By pushing through the labor pains of uncertainty, I believe we can give birth to a new narrative. Positivity doesn’t have to be perfection, but it does require a new way of looking at the world around us.
Shift the Perspective
Admittedly, I danced a little bit when I started seeing public service announcements about mask recommendations, social distancing, and washing your hands thoroughly (still not sure why people have to be told this.).
Sure, standing 6 feet away from someone would be a little inconvenient, but it would certainly keep me from ducking and dodging all the “germs are good for you” advocates who throw common courtesy out of the window during flu, cold, AND allergy season. Yes, even if it’s “just allergies”, ma’am, I’d prefer that you not sneeze 12 inches from the back of my neck while we’re standing in the line at the grocery store. Cover your mouths, my darlings. Germs have wings, and spittle is not cute.
Embrace a New Normal
I recognize that I’m probably one of only a few who actually enjoy grocery shopping, and I’m fine with that. When my kids were little, going to the grocery store was the only “me time,” I could get. I could walk down the aisles, listen to bad flashback 80s music, and just breathe.
Even as my kids grew and no longer needed my attention 24/7, my regular outings to the grocery store were like a mini-vacation. Forget the mani-pedi. An organized grocery list and some carefully selected coupons were my therapy of choice. It’s been one of my “things” for the last 18 years, a weekly respite that I could count on and control, no matter what life was throwing my way.
So, when safety concerns over COVID-19 caused many of our local stores and restaurants to start offering curbside pickup, I started to feel a little panicked. Was in-store shopping disappearing? How would I fill the void? Could I really stop shopping for groceries cold turkey? Sounded a lot like weaning myself off of sugar. I haven’t done that, but it sounded almost as painful.
Again, I searched for the good. Having to think about safety concerns while shopping or eating out is not my idea of relaxing, so curbside service would just have to do until we could do better. A grocery list next to my laptop is not as exciting as one hanging out of the side of my purse, while I’m searching for gluten-free flour on isle 5, but I could make it work.
Embrace Gratitude
Despite having to give up some “mama time” and flexibility, I chose to be grateful for all of the kind people who were willing to do the hard stuff to make sure that my life continues to run as smoothly as possible. That’ a pretty tall order in my book especially since being “on the frontline” has taken on new meaning this year.
It has shifted from the traditional thoughts of the military to also include hospital workers, those locking arms during the protests against racial injustice, and the 40-something cashier standing behind the plastic COVID-19 partition to scan our groceries.
I have MUCH respect for anyone who works with the public daily. Compared to their sacrifice, a small change in my daily routine is nothing more than a hiccup, but I digress.
Back to My Potatoes
Today was grocery day, so I woke up early, ordered online, and prepared to do the pickup before the traffic got weird. My 6-year-old came along for the 10-minute drive, and we joked along the way. The curbside meeting was uneventful. The kind woman with the salt and pepper ponytail and mask brought out my groceries and placed them in the back of my truck. We exchanged pleasantries, and she headed back into the store.
Before backing out, I double-checked the bags to make sure that nothing was light enough to fly off the truck’s bed on the way home. Out of the 7 paper bags that were taped shut, I noticed that 2 were ripped open. Hmm, that had never happened before. I checked the contents to make sure that everything was still there. Everything looked fine, so I assumed that the bags ripped when she put them into the back of the truck. No worries, right? Just an oversight.
At home when the kids were putting up the groceries, I picked up the 5lb bag of russet potatoes and placed them on the counter. What was that smell?
I quickly opened the bag and poured the potatoes into the sink. Over half of them were moldy, and they smelled awful.
I promptly put the potatoes back into the original bag, drove 10 minutes back to the grocery store, put on my disposable mask, and carried the bag into the store and stood in line. Just another day in Covid19ville. Covid, you are not going to rock my positivity today.
When I reached the counter and told the clerk what happened, he politely asked me if I wanted to exchange them. Um, that would be a no.
Then he apologized and said that he didn’t know how to return anything from curbside pickup. Wuh?
Thankfully, he was able to figure it out, but when I asked for cash back, he looked at me funny, but that was my fault. There was a sign right in front of me taped to the credit card swiper thingy that said something about the change shortage and the Federal Reserve. I forgot that cash was no longer popular. My bad.
I went to a different store to replace the potatoes, but this time I went in and inspected them myself. I didn’t have the bandwidth for any more surprises.
When I returned home, my daughter met me at the door with a frozen bag of blueberries.
“Mom,” she said with hesitation, “I forgot to tell you before you left that the seal on the frozen blueberries you brought home was broken, and the bag was open on one side.”
I’m pretty sure those blueberries had freezer burn, but I was not about to make another trip to the store.
Sigh.
All in all, up until today, I thought I had a pretty good handle on my COVID-19 perspective. Before the pandemic, I would have brushed off today’s little irritations as people being careless or just not paying attention, but instead I paused because I understand that I no longer have the flexibility to take things at face value. Carelessness may be masking discouragement and what appears to be someone’s lack of attention could be a by-product of their own pandemic distractions.
Life is life. You roll with it when it comes and manage it the best way you can. We’re shifting into a new normal, but it’s one that we can certainly handle if we keep our heads on straight. Things have a way of working themselves out once the dust settles. We’re just waiting for the sky to become clear again.
These are the things that I try to remind myself of daily. They work for the most part, but sometimes the sepia tones of my Kansas sneak up on me, and I’m reminded that the technicolor of my new OZ is still a dream.
Seriously Speaking
Whoever packed my groceries this morning, I appreciate you, seriously, but you almost knocked over my glass, and it’s only half full, remember? It doesn’t take much these days for me to start wondering if there’s an issue with the food supply chain. Did they give me moldy potatoes because potato farmers have lost their crops and only the moldy ones remain? Are they conducting a secret experiment on unsuspecting shoppers to see if the new moldy potato variety will catch on? Thank you for encouraging my imagination, 24-hour, paranoia news cycle.
You see, in Covid19ville, I need you to stand in the gap for me, for real. We need to stand in the gap for each other. This will allow me to keep pretending that things are reasonably normal. Otherwise, I’m left to my own thoughts, and there are way too many life variables floating around these days for me to try to connect any dots.
So, the next time you smell something funky like that (and I KNOW you smelled it), please throw it away. Don’t leave it on the shelf, and for goodness, sake, don’t add it to my curbside pickup. You’re making my glass wobble.
