Three months ago, “New Normal” was just starting to float around but it was thin on context. I tend to be the last one in the room to get the message but I am catching up. Yesterday, for the first time in months, I went to the grocery store. Earlier I registered with the online shopping service at HyVee grocery store in Belton, MO. I learned how to navigate the shopping software and ordered resupply for my pantry. I used the search bar to find items, picked the date and time I wanted to pick it up, placed the order and then wait. On my chosen date, at the appointed hour, I received a text message. My stuff was ready. So I drove to the store, parked in the numbered spaces near the pharmacy entrance, called the number they provided. Soon a young dude with a face mask brings a cart with my order, puts it in the back of my truck, shows me the receipt and tucks it inside one of the paper bags. When I got home, everything I ordered was there. Due to a few sale prices, my total was less than I had been quoted.
My truck needs an oil change. New Normal: make an appointment, same place, same people but I’ll take a lawn chair, park in the lot, call the manager and tell him my keys are in the truck. They will do the service wearing rubber gloves and mask while I sit in the shade outside. He will call me back with the amount, I’ll write a cheque, hand it through the door and I’ll wipe everything down before I drive home. Even outside, I’ll keep my mask in place. New Normal.
My coffee group has begun to meet again. Our old meet up, Paneras, is open but too confined for distancing so my amigos bring their coffee and a lawn chair to a public park where we can distance in the shade or the sunshine, whichever feels better. I went to a lunch gathering with them a few days ago. The group is serious about distancing. Folks who came late and wanted to squeeze in to a space appropriate for the Old Normal were rebuffed summarily and sent off to wide open space. Outside, with a breeze you still distance; our resident expert on nearly everything (he really is well read, well versed but sometimes a little overbearing) informed us that under those conditions you don’t need the mask. He took his off but the rest of us wore ours. If you have something to offer you may need to shout or repeat it but we’ve been alone so much, it feels like a bonus.
The New Normal is just what they said it would be. The experts have a much better grip on how the virus works now, what we need to be concerned with and what not, and there is a little wiggle room after all. But the rule hasn’t changed; wear a mask, wash your hands and distance. Don’t assume anything other than, everyone is a potential virus bomb. Like with guns, treat them all as if they are loaded.
I have a couple of standing invitations to come-hangout at distance. One of these days I’ll do more of that. Early evening is the time when I feel most isolated. It’s when I want to be human, socialize, make eye contact. Television only moves the bubble so far. I try to sympathize with network programmers; they are about out of timely entertainment. Old movies are sandwiched in between commercials; you get a 7 minute sales pitch for a pharmaceutical drug that can cure something but it may also kill you if you have any of a dozen common conditions. Just when you think they are returning to the old Patrick Swayze movie they reboot with Joe Namath or Tom Selleck pitching unnecessary insurance or reverse mortgages. I play a lot of solitaire and mahjong. I’m almost backed into the corner where I have to choose between Mayberry RFD and Hogan’s Heroes. Ron Howard is 66 years old now but Opie Taylor will be a kid with a fishing pole forever.
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