Ithought I was done writing about the coronavirus, but the virus isn’t done with us.
To ignore it and write about, oh, I dunno … Easter or whatevah feels like living with my head in the sand. Best to just accept and deal with the new reality, because it isn’t over.
Our lives have changed. But I hope this is my last pandemic column, so if you’re sick of it — no pun intended — so am I.
I look forward to when I can return to fruit flies or whatever tap dances out of my over-active fingers and brain.
One new thing I’m seeing is the number of grocery shoppers who are pushing their cart with gloved hands. Not the mittens I used to wear in Seattle winters, but the disposable kind the lab technician puts on before she draws my blood.
May I ask why? Not why is she drawing my blood, but why are ordinary people wearing these gloves just to shop, at a time when the short-supplied medical community are working their butts off to save our ‘okole?
Some are using the see-though ones that food workers need, and same thing: These folks are providing meals, so please leave those gloves for them as well. Or if you must have them, then start preparing meals for others. I’ll tell you where you can drop mine off.
Most supermarkets have run out of the disposable wipes they started providing a few years ago, and I used to snicker at those needy germaphobes anxiously wiping away. In my many decades of life, I’ve grabbed hundreds of shopping carts with bare hands, happily oblivious to the teeming colonies of nasty microbes partying on the handles.
Today, we are living in an alternate universe so, yes, I too have taught myself to wipe down the shopping cart. But now that I’m on board with what (in my humble opinion) used to be paranoid behavior, wipes are nowhere to be found at the front of the store.
Here’s my suggestion: Instead of grumbling to store managers or donning valuable disposable gloves to shop for staples, let’s use one of those antiseptic sheets from our stash hidden in the car. Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about.
We all drive around with a mini-bottle of sanitizer and pack of wipes, so pull one out after you unbuckle your seat belt, then lock your car door so no desperate hygienic thief breaks in to steal the safety supplies tucked in your cup holder.
As soon as you find a shopping cart, grab it with your anti-germ towelette, wipe the handles and then use it to touch groceries. Clean, safe and sensible, without hoarding indispensable supplies much needed by the medical and food prep communities. Waddaya say … can?
Also new are the humanoids walking around with hospital face masks, and it startles me. My understanding is that we should definitely wear one if we are among the COVID-19 infected, or dripping and sneezing due to a nasty cold, but if so, why are you out and about? Go home!
Some say the disposable mask reminds them to stop touching their face, but if you’re not in virus or flu mode, better to contact one of the many crafters making washable cloth ones. Or you could even sew it yourself!
Who knows, maybe when all of this is over, you will have a new business, or at least a new hobby.
See? We can get through this without going pupule.
Aloha and mahalo for doing your share in these terrible times.
Rochelle delaCruz was born in Hilo, graduated from Hilo High School, then left to go to college. After teaching for 30 years in Seattle, Wash., she retired and returned home to Hawaii. She welcomes your comments at rainysideview@gmail.com. Her column appears every other Monday.
