Two things before we begin: First, I lost count at 10 days. I called my entry, "The Frog," Day 10, but it was really Day 11. I . . . lost . . . count . . . after only 10 days. Second, there is no entry for Day 12, which was Friday, March 27, 2020. I was tired. The boy was difficult to get to sleep. I didn't write. But, had I written yesterday, this is what I would have written about . . . .
Shopping.
Shopping is different, now, under the shelter-in-place order. Only pharmacies, grocery stores, convenience stores, gas stations and liquor stores are open. (Yes, liquor stores . . . because Texas.) But we don't go to stores. Going to the store exposes you to a lot more people, a lot more vectors for virus.
We shop online.
But even then, we take precautions to minimize the chance of the novel coronavirus entering our house and making one of us sick. Here's what we do:
- We do not open the front door. That's where packages are delivered and, therefore, that's the most vulnerable point in our space because that is where the most people who don't live in our house (e.g. possibly virus carriers/transmitters) appear.
- For nonperishable items:
- Once a day, my husband drives around to the front of the house and puts the packages in his truck bed.
- Each package is labeled with the date it arrived and a date three days out when it can be opened. (This is because the virus has been found to survive on surfaces for up to 72 hours . . . maybe a little longer.)
- We have three boxes in our garage for these items to keep Day A separated from Day B separated from Day C in order to avoid cross-contamination.
- Once 72 hours has elapsed, my husband opens the packages and wipes them down with a disinfectant (bleach wipes or Lysol or an isopropyl alcohol solution) and brings them inside.
- Once inside, I put the packages away.
- In the case of clothing (some summer clothes for The Boy arrived this past week), they go straight into the washer (which is our general protocol anyway).
- For perishable items:
- My husband wipes each item down immediately and I put them away.
- Vegetables and fruits are washed in the sink with soap and water and set out to dry or dried by hand before we put them into the refrigerator.
Yes, it's a production, but, as I've noted before on this blog, Dr. Fauci has said that if it seems like you're overreacting, you're probably doing the right thing.
This production of bringing items into our house, though, has made me re-evaluate my online shopping habit. And it is a Habit. Now, if I find that I am bored and I think about perusing the Talbots or ModCloth or HerUniverse websites, or even Amazon or Lego, I think about what would have to happen before the item I am considering can be incorporated into my closet or played with by The Boy. Is it worth the effort? Often, it is not. I don't know if it's coincidence, but I seem to be getting more and more emails from my favorite retailers -- Kate Spade is especially pushy -- offering sales and deals. I'm probably not the only person in the United States rethinking their online shopping habits.
Also, I've decided to buy fewer fresh fruits and veggies for the next several weeks and will rely, instead, on frozen or canned items. It's easier than the sink-full of fruits and veggies. Of course, we washed our food before we ate it pre-COVID19, but we did not necessarily do all the washing immediately upon bringing it into the house before it went into the fridge. And we didn't always use soap and water. I think, now, however, I will always use soap and water, just to be safe.
This virus has taught me -- taught us -- that, as modern as we think we are, we are not invulnerable. In fact, we had become complacent thinking that all the dread diseases of yore -- small pox, plague, measles, polio, diphtheria -- were mere sepia-toned memories of a brutal past, not something our technicolor world need worry about. We thought we didn't need to worry about wildly infectious diseases anymore, we who luxuriate in our First World Problems and abundance so great that online shopping is a habit.
Some of us had even become so arrogant about infectious disease that we refused to vaccinate our children against them. The idea of a disease cutting down wide swathes of a population was so ancient a proposition as to be laughable to certain segments of our society. In our modern hubris, we have become less careful about everything. I hope that has changed. My complacency about my own health and safety certainly has. I hope it's changed for others too.
