By Cate Pitterle (’20)
In just a few weeks, everything about shopping has changed. .
I walked up to Trader Joe’s on a Thursday. It was the first time I’d been inside a store during the pandemic, and my mom and I slipped on our disposable masks–priceless commodities acquired from a friend of a friend–before getting out of the car. The hand sanitizer was ready to go upon our return; we’d given up on gloves.
Outside the entrance, bright orange tape marked six-feet intervals where shoppers could wait in line to enter. We took a spot at the end of the line, a couple of spots before the colorful arrow indicating the spot where we could expect a ten-minute wait. Along the line were plants (I was tempted–quarantine has seen me become an amateur at-home gardener) and blooming flowers, a clear marker of spring. And by any measure, this is the weirdest spring I or anyone else I know has encountered.
All around me, masked people shied out of the way to avoid getting close to others. Groups of relatives clung close to each other to take up as little space as possible. One shopper, lacking a mask, had tied a bright red bandana across his face. Below his aviator sunglasses, it made for quite the look–like James Bond had made his way to the Wild West.
But even with restrictions on the number of people in the store, well-marked areas for check-out lines, and an abundance of caution, the aisles were still crowded. (The chocolate section was a particular hit, I noticed.) Shoppers checking out still brushed by those moving around the aisles. And despite screens separating staff members, they still operated in tight quarters.
About the time we were checking out, it hit me. I was noticing space and movement in a way I never had before. When other people got too close to me, it set off alarm bells in my mind. Moving through a narrow aisle was dangerous in a way it never had been before. Things as simple as touching a box of food made me nervous.
In short, I can only describe my quick grocery trip as surreal. There are a lot of words that describe this otherwise gorgeous, sunny spring: weird, nerve-wracking, isolated, stressful. But in the end, surreal seems to fit the most.
It’s been over ten weeks since we’ve been at school–more than one entire summer vacation. If we’ve seen our friends, it’s usually only been to grab a Goodberry’s ice cream, tan on the lawn, or take a hike through Umstead. We’ve watched a lot of Netflix, baked many loaves of sourdough bread, and finally seen our schoolwork wind down. As we enter our real summer break, we can expect many more surreal, time-warp weeks to pass.
But if Trader Joe’s has taught me anything, it’s that the normal still persists. We still walk into a store and gravitate toward our favorite foods. We still buy flowers for Mother’s Day or plants for the summer garden. And though it’s hard to see smiles behind all the masks, I’m willing to bet a lot of us can’t break that habit when we pass people by.
Even though we might rush to lather on hand sanitizer now, this too will pass. We’ll be able to hug our friends and see our faraway loved ones again. We’ll head back to school, whether it’s Cary Academy or college, and we’ll make all the memories we were supposed to these last few months. And we’ll be able to enter a store without worrying.