June 2020 – Mike's Life

Shopping in a Covid-19 world

As I have stated many times, I don’t get political in this column. And I won’t start today. That said, this column addresses some topics that bleed into the realm of health and society, which somehow is now kinda politics. But I offer this initial disclaimer up because, should this be posted on any of the Facebook pages of the local newspapers my column is carried in, I vow I will not go in and read any comments because I believe newspaper comment sections are one of the top causes of high blood pressure in the country, and no one needs hypertension in their life.

That said, I’d like to talk about going to the grocery store in the new world we live in. Thus, some thoughts:

I wear a mask when I go to the grocery store. I get that there are some very strong opinions on both sides. I represent only one side: mine. I wear a mask. If you don’t, well, I’m not the mask police. If you don’t think I should wear a mask, well, OK. You’re also not the mask police. So let’s get our milk and dog food and move on.
I am not a fan of people in my personal space, and that is not because of a pandemic. This has been a theme of my life for decades. If I strategically position my cart where you cannot get within six feet of me, this is not because of COVID-19. Trust me, I was doing this years ago.
Stay. With. Your. Cart. Again, this is not something that is new with me, but with the new world we live in, it’s not too much to ask that, should you forget an item in the produce aisle, you take your cart with you to get it. If you leave your cart at the avocados and then jaunt off to get some lettuce 20 feet away, you’ve kinda occupied all the territory in between, and because I’m a pretty respectful guy, I patiently stand there waiting to get into that territory between you and the cart. And if you are a fellow shopper wearing a mask, my thought is, “Hey, you’re feeling kinda health conscious and probably doing that whole social distancing thing. So, yeah…”
Please be mindful of when you meet a fellow shopper you haven’t seen for a while and want to catch up. Personally, I am at the grocery store to get groceries, but I get that people can catch up with old friends on occasion. Great! But if you are catching up with someone while you are at the end of the aisle, blocking all passage out of said aisle, a little personal awareness (and maybe utilization of your peripheral vision) would help you realize someone is waiting to go to the next aisle.
If you are in stores where there are one-way aisles, could you be mindful of that? I mean, it’s not a whole lot to ask. Quite frankly, I kinda hope it stays that way. And if I get to the end of my shopping list and find that I have to lap down a different one-way aisle to loop back and get my item, I embrace it. A few extra steps in my day!
Lastly, let’s address carts. I am still not a fan of anyone leaving them in a parking spot, much less just casting them aside to drift on their own. And I have also advocated for, when you park, grabbing a stray one to bring inside with you. The grocery stores near me have done a great job at sanitizing carts that are ready for use, and I hope they continue doing that. I will continue to return my cart to the proper corral, but I have to say I am of late less reluctant to go gather a stray. Cart Warriors, you, too, have a pass on that.

Who knows how history will treat all of this pandemic and our responses. As I have said many times over the last few months, you will never be able to prove I was too cautious. But everyone has to make their own choices. That said, I do hope one of those choices is to continue to give me my personal space.

Mike Gibbons was born and raised in Aiken, S.C. A graduate of the University of Alabama, you can e-mail him at scmgibbons@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter @StandardMike.

Since my son has started driving, I have encouraged him to make sure that he finds a standard place to leave his wallet and keys in the house every time he comes home.

I am practically robotic about this, leaving mine in the same little nook and cranny. My routines are simple – I set my keys in a basket on our counter, and I set my wallet in – I will never tell. I don’t need you coming and finding my wallet that is devoid of anything useful other than my license, my bank card and, for some reason, an expired library card from where I used to live. I’m on to you. You will NOT get my expired library card.

I would like to think we are teaching him well on this, and I would celebrate that we are, except for the almost nightly ritual when my son heads to work when he says, “I can’t find my keys!!!” (Spoiler alert: They are usually in the couch cushions.)

He was pretty good about his wallet, however. Because he is 17, his wallet doesn’t contain much: driver’s license and a few random bucks he got for an odd job here or there.

But the other night, he could not find his wallet. He enlisted the support of my wife and me, who began to go through the house on the search.

For what it’s worth, my wife is the expert on finding lost items. She does this forensic thing where she grills you about where you last had said item in a ridiculous CSI protocol that is equally effective and annoying. It’s effective because it works. It’s annoying because it almost always works, and she has this insane ability to find things after asking you question after question until you say, “Oh, wait, I did pull my wallet out in the bathroom while I was looking for a cleaner.” And boom – there is your wallet in the downstairs bathroom cabinet for some inexplicable reason.

Alas, this time, even her grilling could not yield results. Despite the intense questioning, we could not find the wallet.

Fast forward to a few hours later. My wife and I had left the house for a bit, and I got a call from my son. He was out in the front yard chilling out in the early evening. A police officer rolled up in front of our house. He had his wallet. Someone had found it on the road and had turned it into the police.

Parker’s best guess: The last time he had left the house, he went to drop his wallet in the side door pocket and missed, and when he did a quick open-and-shut a bit later when he realized his door was not shut entirely, it fell out on the road.

It has some tire marks on it, but everything was returned to him. He even had some cash in the wallet, and that was still in there, too. Thank you, kind stranger, for being the good we need in the world.

Folks, in these rough times, let’s not forget that there is a lot of that good in the world. We are, overall, a decent group of mammals. Keep paying it forward. Keep doing what’s right. And keep finding a place to keep your wallet and keys.

Mike Gibbons was born and raised in Aiken, S.C. A graduate of the University of Alabama, you can e-mail him at scmgibbons@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter @StandardMike.