Friday, March 13 — On the eve of the first confirmed case of coronavirus in Idaho, my husband and I met his parents and our kids for dinner out. And then we stopped at the grocery store. We’re still newbs at figuring out how to navigate this thing here in Idaho.
Earlier in the day, our inboxes suffered a steady onslaught of cancellations, increasing in intensity as the day went on and raising various degrees of alarm and anxiety. No more professional development for the rest of the year. My husband will be working from home starting on Monday. No more soccer practice or games for my son. No daddy-daughter dance, no STEM night. This is how you disinfect your classroom, but, yes, school will remain open.
A lot changed in the time-span of a single afternoon.
Then again, not really. I stayed late at work trying to finish up a grant report. I washed my hands when I got home and joked with my girlfriends that if we were still planning a get-together I could contribute four squares of toilet paper — no more. I relished the normalcy of laughing, even if it was a little dark.
Then my husband and I met his parents and our kids at the restaurant. We didn’t hug. The wait staff methodically wiped down door handles. We talked about ideas for remodeling our house, changes in upcoming plans, and otherwise caught up on extended family news while classic sports highlights played in the background. We toasted without clinking our glasses.
On the way home, I wondered aloud, “Do we need anything from the grocery store? It’s right there.”
Begrudgingly, my husband pulled into the busy parking lot. We went in without a plan except to be normal. Apples, raspberries, blueberries, cucumber, carrots and salad greens were added to the cart. Wine. A block of cheese, two loaves of bread, milk, eggs. Kleenex. Two big family-sized cans of baked beans. A couple of extra bottles of wine.
As an afterthought: a box of Junior Mints to stick in the freezer.
So basically we “stocked up” on wine, bread, baked beans and Junior Mints. I don’t know what our survival likelihood is on this plan, but I feel ok about it. We weren’t really prepared to think about what we would need in case of an emergency, especially since we don’t really know what the emergency looks like?
To my husband, this impromptu grocery stop was the worst of it.
You may notice that toilet paper was not on our list of supplies. This is because A. we did not need any, and B. if we did, there was none left anyway.
Somehow everyone else checking out around us had plenty.
More than plenty.
And heaps of pasta. And flour. And rice.
One serious shopper had a cart full of chicken, frozen lasagnas and butter. We watched him grab the last flat of butter off the shelves. All twelve pounds of it. And it was the expensive Irish kind.
Were we missing something about butter?
Another parent with two school-aged children had gallons upon gallons of juice.
Have to admit I considered going back to get some juice, but then I remembered no one in our house drinks it.
Two folks in the next aisle purchased nothing but cleaning supplies.
Ok, I get that.
Without a survival guide for this thing, I guess we’re all just relying on our guts to prepare us for the new unknown.
I’m still hopeful if we run out of toilet paper, one of our neighbors will be willing to spare a square.
Read. Write. Repeat. 