I popped into my neighbourhood grocery store today…the scene hasn’t changed much over the past week or two…the toilet paper is cleaned out. I’m glad I don’t need any…. but seriously, where are people putting it all?
Kirk was arriving at YVR, back from Chicago, at 1pm and I thought I’d get a few things before I headed to pick him up and then co-socially-isolate with him for the next two weeks. We didn’t really need anything, but chicken was on sale, and so were a few other things and I figured…I always love a deal.
Our new local Thrifty’s is a small one and was out of the sale chicken, but I picked up a few things. As I walked away from the meat section and Man looked up at me from his bent over position over some bone in chicken and asked me “Would you buy chicken that is dated best before today?”
“If you freeze it if you aren’t going to eat it today, it’s a deal and you’re golden.”
He seemed so appreciative of the conversation and the assurance that the chicken was safe. He smiled at me and said “Thank you so much, have a really great day.”
I had a similar conversation with a woman at the Thrifty’s down on Marine Drive, but she was confused about the ‘buy one get one free – regular price $5.49 each’ on peanut butter that also had a tag next to it that said ‘This store only, peanut butter $4.99’. She had turned and started to ask something and then realized I wasn’t a staff member. When she looked disappointed and turned back to frown at the shelf tag I stopped and asked if I could help…. we puzzled over the tags and I ended up telling her that my take on it was that this store was giving a $0.50 discount on the regular price, in addition to the two for one. She looked up at me and said “I get ‘both’ of the deals?” I replied “that’s certainly how I read it, you picked a good day to buy peanut butter!”
She thanked me profusely for taking the time and wished me a very good day, and told me to stay healthy.
Kirk always looks at me with incredulity when I speak to strangers – I’m a social introvert and so this “social isolation’ thing is something I do not have a personal issue with, as a general rule I don’t talk to people unless I have to, or unless I know them.
But it struck me, from both of these encounters, that we all need to recognize the anxiety and concern that ‘everyone’ is feeling right now.
We define ourselves by how we treat others, and right now everyone needs kindness and generosity. It takes absolutely nothing to be kind to a stranger.
It costs absolutely nothing.
Yet I see the insanity of people filling shopping carts with cases of toilet paper and then turning around and advertising it on eBay at ridiculously jacked up prices.
I see panic buying of hand sanitizers when washing with soap and water works just as well, if not better.
Now that all the hand sanitizer and sanitizing wipes are gone, I see panic buying of isopropyl alcohol and rubbing alcohol when most people have a bottle of one of the best disinfectants on the market in their laundry room (sodium hypochlorite – a.k.a. “bleach”).
And I see people cringing when someone nearby sneezes of coughs.
We are all in this together, globally, and it’s not a significant danger to the vast majority of us. What we really need to do is be compassionate to each other, and be considerate of the risks that we pose to those who are at greater risk.
(73/365)
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