One of my roommate’s engineering friends designed some masks, which his mother sewed.
With a copper wire at the top to pinch in place across the bridge of my nose, the mask fit snugly. An inner pocket held a replaceable filter in the form of a folded half piece of a mechanic’s paper towel.
Once in place, I didn’t feel smothered by the mask at all. Plus the first time I tried it out, the weather was cooler. We picked up the masks prior to shopping for groceries. Rumor had it that grocery stores would start requiring us to wear masks and adhere to one-way aisles. There weren’t any one-way aisles when we later went shopping, but we could only enter through one door and exit through another. Every basket had their handle cleaned by an employee and hand sanitizer was readily available once we entered with our basket.
One thing we didn’t have to worry about going to this particular location was “Wearing a Mask While Black.” Even during a pandemic, racism still existed. Despite wearing a mask as a safety strategy during this pandemic, black people had been harassed for covering up their face. My roommate was more concerned than I was since she was unambiguously black whereas I was an incog-negro. Nonetheless, we were fine since the vast majority of the grocery employees were also people of color.
For two weeks in a row, I’d optimistically visited the TP aisle.
The week before, I’d bought a 4-pack of Kleenex. Not just as a substitute for TP. I also have allergies, which is why I’m never out of Kleenex. Down to my last roll of TP, I’d used it only for long calls and Kleenex for short calls.
As soon as I wheeled past the first set of doors with my freshly sanitized basket, I saw a postmodern, contemporary coronavirus art display: a tower of toilet paper. It startled me. I asked one of the two employees who were guarding it for one of the 4-roll packs–not that there was a choice of size. I didn’t care which brand it was. When I use it, I will think of Charmin UltraStrong. (By the following week, there was actually Charmin UltraStrong–no more using the TP substitute teacher. Who am I kidding? I’m going to use whatever’s available.)
On a stroll around the neighborhood, now sporting my new mask,
I noticed that the price of unleaded was 20 cents cheaper than the last time I’d filled up the tank weeks ago. Since I only drive about twice a week during the quarantine, I don’t yet need to take advantage of the discounted gas.
At my nearest convenience store, there were additional precautions in place.
At first the employees wore masks and a plexiglass shield was installed to separate them from the general public. Now these signs appeared, especially since the rethinking about who needed to wear a mask had changed. I’d been gifted a mask right on time.
Another one of my roommate’s friends gifted us two masks apiece.
It was a different design. On my first through third attempts, I still hadn’t adjusted it to my face correctly. Unlike the first mask, I had to drape its strap over my head as if it were a facial apron, shape the copper wire across the bridge of my nose, and then adjust the drawstrings at the bottom to tie them behind my head. I fought between having the mask so snug that it crushed my nose and making it so loose that it slipped down my nose. What I eventually figured out was that I needed to first gather my dreads into a ponytail, higher than I normally place it, in order to rest the strap on the ponytail. Then pull the drawstrings to adjust it snugly.
Then I trekked a mile and a half to Drive-Thru Postal in order to fax some paperwork.
(Ha, a fax!) As I walked up to the window, I noticed that their reduced hours stated that they would close at 4 PM. I hadn’t even left my apartment until around 4:30, but I got lucky since the mail carrier hadn’t arrived yet, so they couldn’t close until he/she did.
But what concerned me even more was the threat of this wonderful mom and pop postal service closing permanently. This wasn’t due to the pandemic nor the lack of business, but rather their lease being under threat of termination.
A few days later, the price of unleaded had dropped again.
This was after the revelation that the cost of a barrel of oil had hit -$37. I didn’t understand how gas prices remained above a dollar. After all, gas station owners could still make money through things that were sold inside the store. Nonetheless, I still had no reason to gas up my car. So far, I’d gassed up my car only once during this shelter-in-place. One of the upsides to being sequestered for six weeks.
Before being sequestered, I wouldn’t have dreamed of audio editing while working a customer service job.
After all, that requires wearing two headsets since my work laptop has limited functionality. Over the weeks, new habits have formed and for some inexplicable reason, I want to multitask more than ever. The challenge is that I have a daily goal at work. During the slow times, I tend to lose patience and become tempted to log off. While doing something meaningful in between calls, I’m able to weather through the slow times and get things done. Usually it’s watching educational videos and reading, but on this particular slow day, I’d done all that and STILL hadn’t hit my goal. So, I draped another headset on to edit, using one ear and work using the other.
To ward off cabin fever and perhaps clear the mind jumble of multitasking, I took another walk.
Besides saving gas and perserving my sanity, walking to perform light errands allows me to document the revolution as told by fliers on the neighborhood utility poles.
The latest walk scored another in-demand item:
disinfectant spray. For several weeks, I’ve searched high and low on the shelves for these gems. Usually, I just made beeline for the gaping hole in the cleaning product aisle, hoping that at least one or two bottles remained. What I’d find instead were the ugly stepsisters: glass cleaner and air freshener.
As Texas slowly reopens, I’ll see if supplies will be replenished in a more timely fashion or if a surge of new COVID-19 infections will put us back in the hole.
