One change in the last six months of pandemic sheltering is that annoying errands have become major logistical challenges.
A trip to the grocery store requires more than just grabbing the list on the refrigerator door. I carefully peruse my list, add everything I can think of that we might need in the next two weeks, make sure there is a mask and hand sanitizer in my purse, and wend my way through the construction zones between my house and the store two miles away. An hour and a half later, I unload the crammed tailgate area of my Mazda 5, lug sacks and cartons into the house, and put everything away. I feel like I’ve supplied a polar expedition, instead of accomplishing a routine household chore.
Other errands are not quite as bad, but still seem to require planning and psyching myself up to brave the hordes. The drugstore, the hardware store, even a trip to a restaurant for take-out, all now seem like weighty operations.
So last week, when I had to go pick up a book at the downtown Kansas City Library, I tried to view it as an adventure, rather than a mission to another planet.
I hadn’t been downtown in six months, since pre-pandemic days. I’d driven the perimeter freeways of what we in Kansas City call “the downtown loop,” but I hadn’t anywhere in the central part of the city inside the loop. I used to have a couple meetings a month in that area, so I know how to get around it. But as I drove over the bridge and continued south on Broadway last week, however, I realized—one way streets! I hadn’t had to navigate urban one-way streets in six months! I managed.
The Kansas City Library has developed a contactless system for checking out books on hold that works quite well. (Ditto with the Mid-Continent Public Library I usually use, but this book for one of my book clubs wasn’t available through MCPL.) I parked in the garage across the street from the library, put on my mask, texted the number outside the library to request my book, went inside to pick it up, then returned to my vehicle, and drove back to my usual haunts north of the Missouri River. I even had brief conversations with two library employees and another patron, complete with masked smiles and eye contact. Socialization.
I had planned to tack on another errand to my trip to the library. I spent about half an hour in the CVS closest to my home. I even browsed the greeting card aisle for birthday cards I’ll need over the next couple of months. As a Hallmark retiree, I usually only buy cards at the only store in Kansas City where I can get a discount, but I decided to pay full retail price rather than trek to that shopping center. The CVS store had a very nice selection of cards, and I bought several along with my other drugstore purchases.
Browsing. It was an odd feeling to wander an aisle, perusing one product after another, enjoying the humor and sentiments expressed in the greeting cards. What would have been a chore six months ago now felt like a luxury.
As I paid for my purchases, I had a very nice discussion through plexiglass about Chapstick flavors (Why would anyone want caramel latte? Where were the nice mint or fruity flavors?) with the friendly store manager. More socialization.
Then I got back in my car and made an impulse stop at a grocery store I don’t usually go to. I bought cookies that my mother-in-law likes that she can’t get in her town and that my regular grocery store doesn’t carry.
I deserved a treat after all my shopping. I hadn’t bought a chocolate milkshake yet this year. Usually, I mark the start of spring with a chocolate shake on a warm day in April, but this year I hardly left the house in April. I spotted a Dairy Queen across the street from the grocery store. That clinched it—it was milkshake time. Another impulse stop, another smiling exchange through masks with the drive-in clerk, then I sipped my shake as I traveled home.
What would have been errands six months ago, stops I would have rushed through as quickly as possible, viewing them as intrusions in my day, had become a rare opportunity to socialize, to loiter along store aisles, to treat myself and others. An outing. What Julia Cameron might call an “Artist Date.” With taste buds tingling and a smile on my face, I was ready to cocoon myself again at home.
What treats have you given yourself through the pandemic?
