Last night, my husband told me we need to buy some more paper towels.
He couldn’t have said anything more unpleasant to me if he’d tried. I wish he’d told me he was cheating instead. I felt my heart sink into my stomach as I imagined going to Costco to hunt down paper towels, dodging old ladies and aggressive bro-fathers. We were spared the toilet paper panic (we’d just restocked right before shit hit the fan), and I’d hoped we wouldn’t have to worry about paper products until the chaos had passed. I was so, so, wrong.
Have you been to the grocery store lately? Like, lately, as in coronavirus pandemic 2020 under quarantine?
I’m still going into work since I’m “essential”, so I haven’t experienced a lot of the free time laced with financial anxiety that many others seem to be enduring. I’m grateful to still have an income, but the situation at work is fraught with a lack of ethics which I’ll discuss when I’m feeling salty enough to clap back.
Anyway, under normal circumstances, going to the grocery store can be a bit of a hassle, but the vibe is usually neutral and does little to affect our state of mind. But we can’t avoid it. It’s necessary. Everyone needs to go at some point, and everyone will go, because being hangry does no one any favors.
Grocery stores are the final bastion of community exposure in our quarantined world. It’s the only place we’re really allowed to go. It’s useful since you can take a pulse on the mood of local society, and get some fresh(ish?) air.
Well, local society is going bonkers at the moment, and going to the grocery store recently is more akin to a passive aggressive version of the Coliseum in its heyday.
Many shelves are empty, normally plentiful items like onions are sold out, everyone’s pretending not to compete or be too aggressive, and of course, there’s the masks.
Many people wore medical masks when I was living in Taiwan, but it didn’t seem weird. The news showed this phenomenon frequently during SARS and H1N1, and it’s also apparently good protection from pollution that blows in from China. The trend has persisted, and it’s also become something of a fashion statement.
That being said, it’s weird as hell to see so many people in masks at an American grocery store, and it’s made the experience surreal. Are we in a movie? Do I look stupid or over-worried for having this thing on my face? AM I OVERREACTING? (to be fair, I ask myself this final question every day)
Just walking into the store these days puts me on edge. The constant applying and re-applying of hand sanitizer is reminiscent of junkie behavior, and the atmosphere is fraught with anxiety. Planning to go out is like gearing up for a trek into the wasteland. I feel a little badass and kinda cool, then I see that someone else wants that last bag of chips too, and primal instincts are engaged.
I feel for the grocery store workers. I can’t imagine what it’s like to be in an environment of such high anxiety for hours and hours, dealing with panicky people and having to clean up used masks and gloves. The other day I saw a lady try to return a bottle of shampoo, choosing to ignore the many, many, MANY signs plastered around saying “no refunds will be allowed until further notice”. The cashier’s face was a lesson in quiet sass, but of course the woman stayed angry and stormed away.
We were extra nice to him after that.
Between the current consciousness, fear mongering, and suspicion that is perpetuated by the news and your weird cousin on your dad’s side three times removed sharing quack articles on Facebook, the grocery store nebula of angst is not an ideal place to be.
Also, have you ever noticed that in most apocalyptic movies, grocery stores are the places where the most disturbing shit goes down?
In The Mist (2007), everyone is straight up trapped in a grocery store, and if you leave (or are exiled), you die a horrible death. In Bird Box, all the representations of society’s demise are visible, and some dude dies violently in the loading dock. In World War Z, grocery stores are ransacked and looted, and people are openly killing each other, which is weird since the main antagonists are zombies.
I’m sure there are more examples of this, but I’ll spare you.
Thankfully, the stores today are nowhere near that level of decline, but there are still traces of “something’s not right” present.
Soon, my husband and I will have to brave the maze of crazy that is Costco, the mightiest of grocery stores and poster child of consumerism. The employees should be given raises and awards for their level of patience.
In normal circumstances, customers tend to slowly descend into madness starting from the TV displays, and reach their breaking points in the vitamin section. What I’m expecting now is a mad dash of insane from start to finish, but I’m hoping we’ll be surprised.
I’m fairly certain that our Costco is the busiest in SoCal, so we already make an effort to go during the week. If you do go on the weekend, you better bring some kind of weaponry, or you’ll get run over by an overwhelmed mother with three toddlers running around while her useless husband “tries out” the massage chairs for the fifth time.
It’s amazing I’ve taken these places for granted in normal circumstances, but in a crisis, I’m able to appreciate that and be grateful they’re even open. It’s the one normal duty of survival we can exercise that gives us some hope, despite the frantic shoppers.
I hope that when things go back to normal-IF they every go back to normal-we can still show the same level of appreciation for the institutions that kept us alive. And if you need to shop for any paper products at all – godspeed to you.