I drive into the Costco parking lot, my African Print cloth mask in my purse, ready to face the crowds. I’m stunned to see the parking lot is half empty. It feels like the fear has ebbed for the moment.
“Maybe I’ll find toilet paper,” I think.
I head to the entrance, donning the mask my friend made me. I see the other shoppers wearing a variety of mask fashion – the plain white, the little blue ones, the-home-made- with-cool-fabric ones.
By the time I get to the entrance, mine is fully in place as I show my Costco card. I immediately feel the rebel within me start to kick and scream inside.
“I hate masks,” my inner teenager says.
“I hate name tags, and now I hate masks.
Really?
We have to wear these stupid fucking things?
This is ridiculous.” I hear myself rant.
I trundle along with my trolley, my eyesight a bit scant, the mask impinging some kind of clear vision. Or maybe it’s my breath that’s fogging my glasses. I don’t know. Still I rant inside, “I hate masks.”
But everyone is wearing them. Not a good idea to be the rebel now. I might get an electric shock from some COVID police person cruising the aisles and be reported to headquarters. Maybe I’d be shamed, right there in the store over the paging system.
“We have a live one in aisle 5 looking at crackers.
She’s not wearing a mask.
She’s a possible spreader.”
I wonder about this “new world order.” Is it going to be like this? Masks? No hugs? No gatherings? And what about the vaccinations? Will we HAVE to be vaccinated? Where did civil liberties go? What about choice? What about fashion for god sake?
I ponder these things as I cruise by the masked bearded young man who’s stocking mangoes, the taller masked man lining up the cheeses. There are few in the store without their nose and mouths covered.
I have a moment of hope.
Perhaps this is my lucky day and I’ll find the toilet paper, which I haven’t been able to get since I returned from India two months ago. I scurry over to the wide aisles where the paper goods are stocked and scan for Charmin.
Nope.
Oh, and no ground beef either.
Yeah, the run on ground beef is happening.
No coconut milk in cans.
No canned tomatoes.
“I really hope my tomatoes grow well this summer. I’m going to learn to can,” I reassure myself.
I find most of the things on my list. The big bonus today is there’s no line. I sidle up to check out and behind the counter is a Muslim woman wearing not only a mask but a head wrap.
“You must be hot,” I say.
“Yes,” she smiles with her eyes.
We talk about the tulips I’ve bought, and how Spring is here. We don’t mention the awkwardness of our masks, that we can’t see each others’ faces or that this has become a new normal.
She hands me the receipt and I walk towards the door. There, where the two people on either side of the door usually stand, are two people encased in large plastic booths, where you have to now hold up your receipt to the plastic so they can take a look.
“Seriously?” I wonder. “THIS is our new world?”
Hard to imagine kids starting college, weddings, people dating for that matter.
How is it all going to work?
I take off my mask as soon as I’m out the door. Free to breathe the fresh air and spread germs all around the inside of my own car.