My COVID Times Diary – A New Day
Change the changeable, accept the unchangeable, and remove yourself from the unacceptable. ~ Denis Waitley
As I said in my very first COVID Times post, part of the reason I’m writing these posts is to leave something to posterity. Something for little nieces and nephews to read in twenty years. Especially the little ones, I have several under the age of 7. I’m not sure they completely get what is going on. My little 5 and 7 year-old nephews in Brooklyn left their apartment for the first time in ten weeks today.
What I wanted to write about tonight was the surreal image I experienced at the grocery store on Sunday morning. You see I came walking out of the grocery store Sunday morning, I looked around and every person I could see was walking around wearing masks, hands covered in gloves. It was early in the morning, very quiet and just felt completely surreal, like I’d suddenly stepped into a dystopian film. I’d left the store, sparse of customers, again, everyone wearing a mask, many wearing gloves. There is a sanitization station at the entrance to every store, an entrance that is marked and controlled for access. The store, that used to have people flowing in and out of every door in every direction, is now a unidirectional controlled series of ingress and egress doors.
There are no more dividers to separate people’s orders on the conveyor at the register. You see, no one is supposed to stand within six feet of you and only one order at a time can be put on the conveyor, so you don’t need dividers. You now talk to the cashier with a clear plexiglass border between the two of you.
For most of us reading this right now, you’re likely thinking what a silly little piece I’ve written. And that’s because this has become completely normal to you. But if I’d written this piece six months ago saying this is what the world would look like in May, you’d have thought I was a madman. I wonder how long this will be our new normal? Will this be the way it is from now on? Even after the initial outbreak has past, even after we hopefully and finally have a vaccine? Will that piece of plexiglass remain between you and he cashier as a reminder of our COVID Times life in 2020? Only time will tell. ~ Michael ‘Rev’ Kane
The Ministry of Happiness 