Supermarket Sweep

I rolled through the Superfresh fruits and vegetables section early Saturday singing along with Dan Hartman.

“I can dream about you…”

Normally I wouldn’t be singing in public, as I can’t carry a tune in my shopping cart.

But there were so few people around I didn’t have to worry about frightening anyone with my impromptu karaoke hour.

Normally I’d be at the gym at this time of the morning, getting a sound but controlled thrashing from my informal boxing coach before bouncing over to the cycling class for 45 minutes of sustained cardio abuse.

“…if I can’t hold you tonight.”

And normally I’d do my grocery shopping on Sunday afternoon, when the store is so crowded and noisy you can barely hear yourself think, let alone decipher whatever the hell is playing on the sound system.

But “normal” doesn’t count for much in today’s pandemic reality, now that the gyms are closed and the threat of Covid-19 means I need to get my rear-end up to the store before the crowds and their germs roll in.

I’m vacillating between numbed acceptance of this unacceptable situation and barely restrained terror as the number of coronavirus deaths continue to climb; as New York, my hometown, turns into Corona Central and my country’s virus body count surpasses China’s, the flashpoint for this nonstop hell ride.

Most of the people in the store were wearing masks, so the place looked like an ER with a produce aisle. I had gloves on, of course, but I haven’t gone the mask route yet because doctors have been saying they don’t offer much protection.

But I’m getting so tense that I’m thinking of buying a mask just to sooth my nerves—sort of a lucky rabbit’s foot I can wrap around my face.

George Michael’s “Faith” was next up on the store’s hit parade, another song from the Eighties, when the only time we might have used the word “pandemic” would’ve been in reference to the so-called Spanish Flu of 1918.

But back then most of us didn’t think that this sort outbreak would ever happen again. We know better now, I thought, as I moved through the empty aisles and hummed along with two dead men.

“I got to have faith, faith, faith...”

Game On

I saw a bunch of kids playing near Narrows Avenue last week, happily oblivious to the fear that’s eating away at the adults around them. Two boys approached a girl on her bike and asked her if she wanted to join the game.

“Sure,” she said.

“Good,” one boy told her. “You’re it!”

“Why?” she demanded, her face falling.

I kept walking, so I didn’t hear the explanation.

I fondly recalled the days when being “it” was such a terrible stigma that you needed to cleanse yourself as quickly as possible.

Of course, back then all you had to do to be free was tag a kid who was slower than you.

“It” has taken a much darker meaning now and nobody wants to get tagged in this deadly game.

I went to bed early on Friday so I could get up early for my shopping expedition and, as I switched off the TV, I looked out my living room window at the lights in other homes, and the apartment building one block over.

Each glowing window looked like a campfire, and I thought of ancient times when our ancestors huddled around flames to stay warm and safe. Modern society is disconnected enough, but this disease has driven us further apart, back to our own separate campfires.

As I approached the checkout line Saturday morning, a cashier in a surgical mask held up her gloved hand to keep me six feet of social distance away.

I appreciated her vigilance and I was starting to relax a little bit--until I turned around to see a woman so close behind me she could’ve been auditioning to be my proctologist.

“Whoa!” I said, quickly creating some space.

This woman apparently had been in a coma for the last few weeks because she came barreling up to register and had to be stopped by the cashier.

“Stay back,” the cashier said.

I didn’t catch this loser’s next comment, which apparently referred to me, but the cashier’s retort came in loud and clear.

“It’s not about him,” she said sharply. “It’s about me. I’m not getting sick.”

The cashier has a right to be fearful. Unlike me, she can’t work from home. She has to be here with the crowds and their germs whether she wants to be or not.

“Stay safe,” I told her as I left.

“You, too.”

Yeah, we gotta have faith because right now we don’t have much else.