Coronavirus Dispatch from a Lake County Grocery Store
I'll update the past few years later; right now I just want to journal a little and get back in the habit of writing about my daily experiences, thoughts and feelings.
Lake County, California still has no confirmed cases of Coronavirus as of today. Most businesses have been shuttered, although the restaurants are still offering curbside service for take out. The state is even allowing alcoholic beverages to be bought and sold as to-go items. Crazy! The county ended up closing the waterways and lakes, as well as putting the kibosh on vacation rentals and Air BNBs since folks have been coming here from the city to isolate. It's funny, nobody wants to come to Lake County any other time, but when the apocalyspe starts in come the urbanites buying out the small local stores and hitting up the gun shops. One of the firearms dealers I work with at my job told me the day after the shelter in place order went out, he had a line to the street of people waiting to get in to buy a gun.All it takes is one pandemic for people who say they'd never own a gun or take a government handout or how universal healthcare is bad to do a complete about face and understand how those things are important.
Mostly though, people have been decent, not including all the panic buyers who emptied the shelves of toilet paper and fresh chicken. I didn't need tp when there was a run on it, so I didn't buy any. I got down to my last two rolls and then got a bit frustrated trying to find a pack. I finally found one last Sunday at the Dollar General when I was also looking for my very specific acid reducer I have to take (I'm somehow developed silent reflux in the past coule years. Yay.). Say what you want about how terrible Dollar General is, but they were the only store that had what I needed when I needed it. Anyway, the grocery stores are all pretty much back to normal although there are limits on how many of the same item you can buy at a time. I did see a shitty encounter while I was in line though. This guy behind me started chatting with me about how he had to buy stuff he normally doesn't eat because what he does eat is sold out and now he has to make shrimp pesto because that's all he knows how to make with what he has. Then he looks over at this elderly lady in the next line. She's wearing a mask and gloves standing behind her cart. Mister Pesto starts telling me how her mask isn't going to protect her from the virus. I just look at him and shrug. He then shouts over at her and tells her how her mask isn't going to protect her from the virus. She just looks at him and shrugs. Mister Pesto is not satisfied with this, so he goes into great detail about how the mask doesn't protect against the virus. She tells him her husband asked her to wear it. He says her husband doesn't understand how her mask doesn't protect against the virus. She looks at him. He looks at her. I'm looking at both of them because this is highly entertaining. She then informs Mister Pesto that her husband is undergoing chemo for liver cancer and he was originally given a month to live but has survived for five years and she doesn't give a rat's ass whether or not the mask protects against the virus but since her husband asked her to wear it, she is going to wear it. Mister Pesto shut up. It was beautiful.
Lake County, California still has no confirmed cases of Coronavirus as of today. Most businesses have been shuttered, although the restaurants are still offering curbside service for take out. The state is even allowing alcoholic beverages to be bought and sold as to-go items. Crazy! The county ended up closing the waterways and lakes, as well as putting the kibosh on vacation rentals and Air BNBs since folks have been coming here from the city to isolate. It's funny, nobody wants to come to Lake County any other time, but when the apocalyspe starts in come the urbanites buying out the small local stores and hitting up the gun shops. One of the firearms dealers I work with at my job told me the day after the shelter in place order went out, he had a line to the street of people waiting to get in to buy a gun.All it takes is one pandemic for people who say they'd never own a gun or take a government handout or how universal healthcare is bad to do a complete about face and understand how those things are important.
Mostly though, people have been decent, not including all the panic buyers who emptied the shelves of toilet paper and fresh chicken. I didn't need tp when there was a run on it, so I didn't buy any. I got down to my last two rolls and then got a bit frustrated trying to find a pack. I finally found one last Sunday at the Dollar General when I was also looking for my very specific acid reducer I have to take (I'm somehow developed silent reflux in the past coule years. Yay.). Say what you want about how terrible Dollar General is, but they were the only store that had what I needed when I needed it. Anyway, the grocery stores are all pretty much back to normal although there are limits on how many of the same item you can buy at a time. I did see a shitty encounter while I was in line though. This guy behind me started chatting with me about how he had to buy stuff he normally doesn't eat because what he does eat is sold out and now he has to make shrimp pesto because that's all he knows how to make with what he has. Then he looks over at this elderly lady in the next line. She's wearing a mask and gloves standing behind her cart. Mister Pesto starts telling me how her mask isn't going to protect her from the virus. I just look at him and shrug. He then shouts over at her and tells her how her mask isn't going to protect her from the virus. She just looks at him and shrugs. Mister Pesto is not satisfied with this, so he goes into great detail about how the mask doesn't protect against the virus. She tells him her husband asked her to wear it. He says her husband doesn't understand how her mask doesn't protect against the virus. She looks at him. He looks at her. I'm looking at both of them because this is highly entertaining. She then informs Mister Pesto that her husband is undergoing chemo for liver cancer and he was originally given a month to live but has survived for five years and she doesn't give a rat's ass whether or not the mask protects against the virus but since her husband asked her to wear it, she is going to wear it. Mister Pesto shut up. It was beautiful.