Monday, March 23, 2020

Day 5 - What a Weird Day

Just as we always have toilet paper and paper towels on hand, we usually keep a well-stocked pantry. Rain or shine, summer or winter, we have plenty of food in our cabinets. We like being prepared for Idaho winters so we do our big pantry stock-up before winter and then do another after winter when our cabinets are again bare. With winter over it was time to stock up again.

Maybe it was a mistake in times like these.

Other than my disposable cup run the other day, we haven't been to the grocery store in a couple weeks. Yeah, I've read things about grocery stores on the Internet and have heard unpleasant stories from our daughter about what life is like in the stores now. Guess it had to be another one of those you have to see it to believe it things.

Our open 24 hours a day bag your own groceries store Winco, where we usually shop, didn't look like it did just two short weeks ago. Barriers at the door preventing more than a couple people through the door at a time. Someone counting how many customers were heading in. We didn't even have to ask why she was counting - the big huge sign outside told us no more than 200 customers could be in the store at a time.

Then even more signs once we got inside the second set of doors. So many it was a bit overwhelming.
Signs for new store hours and senior and vulnerable populations special hours. Social distancing reminders. Limits on purchases. A no-return policy for certain items. Another only 200 in the store notice. Notices about what they didn't have in stock. (We went first thing in the morning so the "out of the following" sign hadn't been updated for Monday.) The additional large bold sign about sanitizer tells me it must be an ongoing issue.

Once inside we saw those empty shelves we've been hearing about. Thankfully the type of things we were buying were plentiful. Fresh and frozen fruits and vegetables. Canned goods - beans and tomatoes and chicken and tuna. Pastrami and turkey breast and bacon. Greek yogurt and Special K and Stevia. And mayonnaise.

I hate mayonnaise. Like really hate it. Can't stand the look of it, the texture of it, and especially can't stand the smell. But Ed uses it as a base to make his salad dressing so we had to pick some up. Twice. Sort of. Once when I put it into the cart and the second time from the floor at the checkstand. As I was bagging the mayo it slipped onto the floor and busted. Splattered everywhere. Across the floor, up the side of the checkstand. And up and down my pants. Did I mention I can't stand mayonnaise?

Between the mayonnaise incident, the weird out-of-the-ordinary grocery store experience, and the plumber who paid us a visit to fix our shower (with a $1,600+ estimate), today was just downright weird.

Tomorrow will be Tutorial Tuesday so it just has to be a better day than today.