As the World Runs Amuck!

​​by Skip Cohen

​Okay, life is different for all of us. Nothing is the same, as our values shift, living through social distancing and being hunkered down. While some of you will feel it's inappropriate for me to find humor in what we're going through, you deal with the anxiety your way, and I'll deal with it mine.

As I got up and went grocery shopping at 7:00 am this morning, taking advantage of "Senior Hours" at Publix supermarkets, it hit me how many things have changed since we went into self-quarantine.

• Let's start with a question: When did I start using the words "hunker down" all the time?
• My eyesight is terrible without contacts or my glasses. I'm wearing my glasses all the time lately, but with a mask on, they steam up. Therefore you never know what I might buy at the market. 
• My definition of "styling" has changed. We're the envy of everyone at the market with custom masks our daughter-in-law made.
• A neighbor, I think, said hi to me in the market. But he had on one of those commando turtleneck masks to his eyeballs, and while I talked to him for a minute, I was too embarrassed to ask him who the hell he was!
• I've accepted huge bills at the supermarket, but Sheila reminded me that we don't go anywhere except to travel from room to room in the house! Therefore we're spending more at the market.
• I found myself excited they lifted the ban on buying more than one carton of eggs but saddened that all pasta sauces are limited to two items per shopper.
• I was incredibly excited and proud to scoop the last jumbo pack of paper towels - eight triple rolls that I kept an eye on through my entire shopping list. It took me back to the search for a Cabbage Patch doll in the 80's!
• I got yelled at by the supermarket police for going the wrong way in a one-way aisle. But I was the only one in the aisle!
• Both my car and Sheila's have a container of Lysol wipes, and one trip to the market is two wipes - one to wipe down the cart before going in, the other to wipe me down, getting back into the car.
• I broke down and bought a hair-cutting kit after Sheila threatened to shave my head in my sleep. Keep in mind that a standard joke throughout my career has always been my hair NEVER being messed up. She did a great job.
• I'm excited when we get a telemarketing call, although they have changed. The guys from India have stopped calling, and business has been brought back to the states! There's a shift back to Americans who want to keep pitching me on extending the warranty on a car I no longer have!
• Business attire, at least when I have to be on camera, is now a nice shirt with sweatpants or pajamas!
• Going out to dinner is now defined as eating in front of the TV versus the kitchen.
• Now that gas is down to $1.80 a gallon, we've got no place to go.

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Feel free to add to the list. Life is definitely strange, but you guys are my anchor to what's really important, friendships, laughter, and smiling.


Stay safe and healthy!

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