Due to the recommendations of our president and state governor, my family and I have been huddling at home, watching television, eating, and generally getting on one another’s nerves for the past few weeks. Whereas I used to get out several days each week to see movies, have lunch, or just meet with friends, I now rarely see anything other than the same four walls inside my house.
The other day, however, I grabbed my car keys and headed to the great outdoors searching for a grocery store so I could replenish the family’s doomsday supplies. I just wanted to get some necessities. You know: chips, sodas, alcohol, and a few bags of mini marshmallows to make rice krispy treats.
In other words, essentials.
When I headed out, I was completely unprepared for what I encountered.
The night before my journey, we had a major storm roll through our town. It rained and the wind kicked up to over 30 miles per hour at times. As I drove along the street leading away from my house, I found myself veering back and forth over the roadway to avoid large tree limbs, garbage cans, and various other debris that had been deposited in my path. There were no other cars on the road, but that actually made the whole thing more surreal.
I felt like I was a lone survivor of the apocalypse, driving through an abandoned city on a broken, partially blocked road. I kept waiting to run into rusted, burned out hulks of other cars that would force me to abandon my car and walk the remaining miles to the grocery store.
And since I had left the house without my machete and sawed-off shotgun, I felt woefully underprepared for this journey.
I fortunately made it to the store without having to give up the car. I also did not see any other people out during the drive, living or undead. The streets were uninhabited.
I did find several cars and people milling about when I arrived at the grocery store. There was a short line of shoppers standing six feet apart from one another waiting for each person to grab a grocery cart, wipe it down with antibacterial wipes provided by the store, then get out of the way so the next person in line could take their turn.
I grabbed my cart, wiped it down, and entered the store.
Many of the shoppers inside were wearing masks over their faces. Some of them were purchased facemasks, while others were homemade. All I could see were dark, suspicious eyes, peering at me over the tops of the masks, gauging whether or not I was a threat. I assume they were all thinking the same thing as they looked me over.
“If he comes closer than six feet, I’m going to cave in his head with a can of creamed corn.”
That’s okay, though. I was thinking the exact same thing about them.
Just like any good apocalypse, the store aisles were mostly empty shelves thanks to previous looters who got there before me. No paper products anywhere. No soap, no eggs, no flour, no sugar. Nothing that could be horded and stored in a garage for coming months of anticipated famine. It was less like shopping and more like foraging for scraps in a bombed-out building.
I snuck around the store, moving from empty row to empty row, trying not to make too much noise. I don’t know why. I just know that’s what everyone does in movies when they’re in a grocery store that has been picked clean. Making noise usually gets everyone killed except the young, good-looking people. Since I know what I look like, I stayed quiet.
I found some of the items on my list, but certainly not everything. Shopping these days is an exercise in futility most of the time.
And there were no zombies to shoot, which made the experience even more miserable. At least with zombies you can work out a few of your frustrations with a baseball bat and nobody is going to call the police.
As I payed for my groceries, I waved at the cashier through the plastic barrier the store had erected between her and the customers. I swear, the stores have more security for their employees right now than most banks. I asked her several times how her day was going before she finally shook her head and yelled, “I can’t hear you over here. Just put your credit card in the scanner and go away.”
After loading my meager supplies into the car, I headed home. It was the same lonely, debris-filled obstacle course I came in on, only in reverse. Nobody drove up next to me to run me off the road and steal my food, which is good. It means society hasn’t broken down that far.
Yet.
Still, it made me glad when I was back home with my family. They drive me crazy, but it is a more normal kind of crazy than anything going on right now outside the house. For the foreseeable future, I am just going to hunker down behind the moat and the barbed wire and try to ride this thing out, at least until the next time I have to go foraging…
Sorry. I meant, shopping.
Shopping with my machete and sawed-off shotgun.
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