HAS IT COME TO THIS? AM I REALLY RECOMMENDING STREAMING A MUSICAL?
Just over two weeks ago, prior to self-isolating, I found myself standing in line to check out at the grocery store. The woman in front of me was putting her groceries onto the check out conveyor and suddenly left to shop for something else. She quickly returned with second gallon of 1% milk. When the clerk told her that she was limited to one gallon, she bent her neck a little and slightly turned her head, like Maverik, my daughter’s yellow Lab, when he seems puzzled. She stood absolutely still for a moment, holding the gallon of milk suspended above the moving conveyor as she calculated what had been said. Suddenly, she turned on a dime and hurried away with the milk in hand, explaining to no one in particular, “My bad.” As she sped around the corner of the dairy aisle, I told the clerk that I was grateful for his being there and said that I remembered when we worried about the opiod crisis and stressed over controlling narcotics instead of milk.
It is now day 16 of being compliant with COVID-19 precautions. I have stopped yelling at the television and feel good about seeing Margaret when I talk to myself in the mirror. I wear soft pants with a drawstring every day, and don’t remember the last time I wore a button-up shirt or a tie. When we went to the Island Park Landfill, we found that we were not required to wear gloves to handle almost 100 pounds of trash, but the weigh station attendants would not touch our money. Mary Kay and I were very grateful that they were there and realize that the landfill is an essential service. Normally the attendant weighs the car and passes us an orange, rubber, numbered cow tag that we return when we check out. Despite our being the only car at the landfill, the hello window attendant held up a small post-it note with “31” on it, as she mouthed, from behind the closed window, “Remember this.” I assume that we were the 31st car of the day. The only other visitors to the landfill were about 100 crows who seemed excited to see us. Without gloves, mask or protective shields, I tossed a dozen bags of household garbage into the collection bin and returned to the weigh station. In the rearview mirror, I noticed the crows flying back to the bin to see what they thought we had left for them. At the goodbye window, another attendant put on rubber gloves as he weighed the car. As I mouthed, “31,” he held held up three fingers. I put three, one-dollar bills into the Ziploc bag he held out through the opened sliding glass window. He closed the bag without ever touching our paper money, closed the window, and smiled while he mouthed, “Thank you.” I closed the car window and mouthed back, “Thank you.”
One of the results of being compliant with isolation is how grateful I am for those who have essential occupations and still go to work to help the rest of us. The real impact of this pandemic will become clear in the rear view mirror. From my perspective, there are worse things than being isolated in Island Park in a cabin with a beautiful woman. I have stopped yelling at the television and actually watched an online streaming of Daddy Longlegs at the Hale Theater in Orem for over two hours last evening with Mary Kay. It reminded us of the source of happiness and why we love each other. We watched it for entertainment and discovered great wisdom in a heartwarming gem. The Hale Theater will stream Daddy Longlegs again this weekend.
Here is the link: https://www.haletheater.org/
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