One of the things I remember having been irritated by, when I lived with my parents in grad school, was my mom's tendency to shop five different stores for groceries - one store had the brand she liked of one thing, one store had a good sale on another thing, a third store had better meat. I admit, pettishly, my feeling was "pick the best overall store and just use them"
Of course, my prior personal shopping experience had been in Ann Arbor, without a car, and my choice was a place called White Market (which was very small and overpriced and had limited selection) or ....Varsity Corner? I think? I forget the name of the place. They specialized in wine and booze but also had groceries, but once or twice I got food from them that had gone bad, and their reaction was "enh, not our problem" and so I stopped shopping there.
When I could, I walked to the farmer's market (which was a fair hike and was no good when it was raining) on Saturdays for produce but other than that, it was the very rare trip to stock up at a Kroger either when one of my parents brough me back from a break, or when a friend with a car could coordinate their trip with my free time.
Here, in the before times, I mostly depended on regular trips to Kroger but that seems too far now, especially given how busy it used to be on Saturday afternoons - I'd hate to drive down there and then have to wait a very, very long time just to be let in (I presume like most places, they are at limited capacity).
I've been using wal-mart with the pick up - no way I am going in that store now, not as crowded as it usually is - but it's been extremely variable. Today, they claimed to be out of milk - so the main thing I was even shopping there for, I couldn't get. (And they were out of a boursin-type cheese I wanted). At first I was concerned - is this the tip end of actual food shortages? Am I going to have to learn to tolerate drinking the canned milk I bought for breadmaking?
I decided to try Pruett's. I admit, I hadn't been back there, not since the time I was in there without a mask (I forgot it) and some guy coughed in my vicinity and I spent several days worrying. But this time I figured I had to. So I masked up and went in.
Less than 10% of the shoppers had masks. ALL the cashiers and stockers did. It's a bad look when your customers won't take one of the basic precautions being recommended. It wasn't horribly crowded but was busy enough I had to be careful with spacing.
They had milk. I got that and a few other things I needed. And some frozen things.
But it irritates me to have to go to multiple stores for what I need. I would like to be able to go ONE place and get all the food required. I don't know how common that is for people but I would like it to be a thing. Especially now, when it seems harder to do the shopping.
I don't know about the mask thing though. I guess unless a business (or a locality, and I don't see that happening here) decides they are mandatory, most people won't bother. I don't know why. To me it seems easy: I can avoid the guilt of "what if I exposed someone else?" if I get sick and that tiny 5% or whatever protection a mask gives the wearer is worth it. I admit I interpret the refusal to wear a mask as either a refusal to take the virus seriously, or maybe an "f you" to other people - I have heard isolated reports of idiots yelling at mask-wearers and telling them they're weak or a sheep or some such thing.
(I laugh at the "sheep" thing because there's another reference I'm familiar with to being called a "sheep," it's in Matthew 25 and another one in John 10:27....I would want to be that kind of a sheep)
But I don't know. We have not shown ourselves, as a people, to be very good at living with one another in these days and frankly I feel like it's worse than it was when I was younger. I don't know why.
I joked on twitter that some "manly" and revered celebrity (I thought of The Rock, but even he might not be enough for the mask refusers) to go a little crude and do a "sack up* and mask up!" campaign, pointing out that protecting the vulnerable - which is why you wear a mask, it's not for you - is a sign of strength (and of manliness, if we want to go there, it does seem there's a gender divide on this from what I've seen).
I dunno. I know I don't understand people but it seems so clear to me. But what do I know? Not much, I guess.
My mom tells me the Jewel she shops at has a sign saying people without a mask will be provided one, and if they won't wear it, they'll be asked to leave, but when she mentioned the sign to a worker one day (approvingly), they kind of sighed and said "I don't know what authority we would have to get someone to leave if they got really belligerent, though." And there's the problem, as I see it.
(*Yes, THAT "sack." If people are going to shout crude epithets at mask wearers, maybe we need to get a little crude in our usage too)
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I'm trying to clean house. Did a deep clean of the bathroom - JUST the bathroom - and it took 45 minutes. I am not happy about that. I'm guessing the rest of the house will get a less-deep clean now.
I mean, I wish the house at least had the good manners to stay clean in this time - it's not like I'm going outside all that much even to drag dirt in here.
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