This is the story of my trek.
Before I left, I pulled out two big boxes at the back of a closet. They contained most everything I have collected relating to survival. (One box is more health-and-beauty, but also survival). I was hoping to find a little spray bottle, but I ended up with a larger one, which I filled w/ 70% rubbing alcohol. I added a slight amount of hydrogen peroxide, just to see what might happen. Nothing. I need to add some tea tree oil to this mix.
Took a deep bath, washing my hair, which is down to my tits bitches. Got dressed. By the way, since this virus doesn't like organic surfaces, (other inside our bodies), I wonder if wearing cotton would be a good idea. I wore a blue cotton shirt, just in case. Long sleeves. Etc. Put on a surgical mask, covered that with a hard construction mask, to fit things tighter around my face. One thing I found in that box was a great pair of goggles, so I brought those along as well. No more mustache. Hair inside my cap. I almost considered wearing a rain poncho, before entering a store, but that never happened.
So, a big thing about the other day was animals. I think they really know something is up. The whole human race has become one big fat coward, and they like it! Not even a block away, some dog barks at me. I also recall being startled by someone shooting a pellet gun. I was carrying wet garbage + doggie doo-doo, and was going to throw it in a dumpster, but the dumpster was gone. So, I lugged that until I was across the street from the vet, where there was a nice clean dumpster. Wearing gloves, btw.
So, across the street, the vet's parking lot has a bunch of people, no masks. One woman is trying to control a giant pitt-bull-like dog, who starts barking at me. Everyone is going in and out of the little door. Inside there is a very cramped waiting room. And the two clerks sit right next to each other. No masks. Just business as usual. I had arranged for them to bring the antibiotic out at 3:30pm, when I would knock on their window. So, I know on the window, and the girl, who is two feet away from me behind a screen, doesn't know what I'm talkign about, and so she opens the window even wider! Fortunately, the other girl knew, and she brings out the med. "Do you want me to just put it down for you?" I said yes, and she laid it right where everyone walks. As she was starting to go inside, we both did double takes, because she was kinda cute. Possibly Italian or Jewish. There's another girl who works there who is drop-dead beautiful. Painful to look at her. She's too young for me, but I would make an exception in this case. I liked her T-shirt: "Urban Cowgirl." Anyone who works with animals has dating potential, in my book. Although, I don't date anymore, so.
Well, I scoop the meds up using a plastic bag, and start walking, while people look at me like I'm some kind of alien. Who cares?! They're idiots. Many of them will be culled from the species. Btw - can you imagine what actual germaphobes are going through right now?!
As I am walking along the highway, someone lets their dog out - another pitt-bull-like dog because that's the only breed in this town, basically. So, of course, the dog starts running at me, and I nonchalantly cross the street - where the dog continues coming at me. Meanwhile, I am approaching another dog behind a fence, and I tell dog number 1 to hang with dog number two. And the tails are wagging, so, I have it under control. (If dog number 1 had lived further downtown, he would have attacked me). But the owner starts yelling for dog number one, and so dog number 2 starts barking. I just don't want the first dog to TOUCH me, that was the whole thing. It was a little sad that these two dogs lived right across the street from each other, but apparently weren't really acquainted. Anyway - another example of animals beign all bold now.
I finally make it to F&F. I stop, roll down my sleeves, fix my facial gear, put gloves on top of gloves, etc., and enter the store. Thank GOODNESS there were a few people with masks on - all men, those I saw. But everyone else was walking around bare-faced. One tall dude is walking around making jokes into people's faces, and I'm like, this is bizarre. I mean, before this crisis, you could look at a guy, who looks mature and sane, and has people's attention, and assume this is a responsible person, right? But you see that same guy in this setting, and you realise how many, many people you once assumed were grown-ups are actually complete fools.
The customer service desk, which is rather large, had panes of plexiglass in front of the workers. The person attending me kept looking around her pane, to hear better. And, she had a really judgemental tone to her, like she thought I was dirt, for some reason. All I can guess is that my mask made her think I was less of a man, right? But the men with masks on, they showed respect. Because. They were not idiots.
Meanwhile, there was a girl behind that counter who started body-flirting with me. So, I'm thinking maybe the boldness in wearing a mask might be a turn on to halfway reasonable females. She wasn't wearing a mask, either. My little goggles were so moisted up that I had to take them off and bend in to read the credit-card machine, a foot away from bitchlady. And, when I was in line to purchase my new shoes, the cashier had no mask, and was joking along with a maskless man, who just wouldn't leave. Ergh!
Then I walk up through little fields towards Aldi's. Some animal was running around in the tall grass as I passed - like, moving alongside, lol. I had to sit down and rest. Really wore the wrong shoes for this.
At Aldi's, it was Kafkaesque. There were signs up about social-distancing, but people only thought to observe this when they were in line to check-out. Otherwise, people were right next to each other constantly. They don't understand that the virus can linger in the air, or be swept up by a breeze. One rather cute lady was standing at the cheese/etc. area, with whom I would otherwise have gotten closer, but I stood waiting for her to move along. Another woman, seeing me distancing so, pulled her cart right in front of me, two feet away, and planted herself where I intended to be. So, I resorted to my old Irish BS, and deliberately crossed in front of her, and stood, blocking her path, he ha. This woke her up, and she started distancing, waiting til I was done.
But, the whole disconnect was amazing to me. People completely unaware, unreal, needing someone else to tell them how to behave and survive. Such gross irresponsibility is going to cost this town. It happens in my own neighbourhood. People crossing through the yard, etc. You can pick the virus up this way, I hope you know. It's like Garlic Mustard. Every one of a garlic mustard's flowers soon sports thousands of tiny seeds. Thousands. That's why this other Chinese invasive is taking over yards and forests. This virus is the same way. Once it latches onto an immune cell, it dumps thousands of copies of its RNA inside the cell. And that happens exponentially inside the body, similar to the contagion rolling through society.
I take my cart outside of Aldi's to do the packing. This young black Christian gentleman, no mask, decides to come over near where I was. He offers to help me pack, no! I walk on, and rest, behind some buildings, where I don my new shoes. Much, much better. I walk until I reach the picnic area in the high-school sports field, where I sit and rest. I absolutely know I cannot continue this way, so I open up a full garbage can and stuff one of my bags - a heavy one - in there. I leave, get home, tell dog to keep away, wash, and go back for the bag. When I return again, I leave most of the groceries sitting in the living room, where they are still. I did wash some packages I needed to open. And, I left all my cloths, glasses, wallet, etc., in a pile in my bedroom. It just occurred to me, though, that I have been using the same cap(!)
Got drunk, ate fish and pizza, and eventually brought myself out of a bad migraine using ancient Tantric methods. Works every time. Now, I wait a week or two to see if I lose my senses of taste and smell, etc., and become the next casualty. I have good lungs, but if this hits me, I will have a cascade of immune chemicals surging in me, which will give me a severe CFS relapse and keep the COVID-19 lingering for months, which is the better scenario. I feel great today, but I have heard people say that they felt absolutely great on the day they were infected. I'm not worried at all, I just don't want it to happen. I'd like this whole era to end soon, but it's not going to. We are going to evolve into sightless moles. I just know it.
I hope you remain safe and healthy. Join this community! - anti_viral ! I should remind you: When the numbers start going down, in Washington, now in NYC, this is not the same thing as when the flu, etc., numbers drop. The latter happens due to warmer weather, vaccines and herd immunity. It is social distancing which is bringing the COVID-19 numbers down. Once we let up on that, it will come back like a wildfire. And places that think they are safe presently, with low numbers, don't understand the virulence of this pathogen. One cruise ship is responsible for 10% of Australia's cases - and this is just the beginning.
Time for a movie...