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Aggravation



If COVID-19 is producing the stages of grief for most of us, then there should be a sixth stage by now – aggravation. I certainly don’t support the small, but loud, group of protestors, as I think states and cities have reopened too soon. We’ve already lost 100,000 people and surely won’t have a vaccine any time soon, regardless of what Agent Orange claims.
For me it’s just the daily annoyances of what the new reality is that’s beginning to drive me crazy. While many of my fellow citizens are choosing to chuck their masks, I’m still holding firm. But now that it’s feeling like summer in the Midwest, even walking around in a mask is fairly unpleasant during much of the day.
Yesterday, on a trip to the pharmacy I went through the drive-thru, and luckily noticed before leaving that there was an error. It seemed to make sense to me at the time to actually go inside, but that, I found out, required not just the mask, which I was already wearing, but also I’d need to have my temperature taken, and with a device that had to touch my skin rather than just be pointed in my direction. Unlike one of Ohio’s loopier politicians, who’s convinced that such a check is a violation of her privacy (I wonder if her fellow representatives will agree with her if she gets the virus and then passes it on to them), I submitted to the temperature check, and hopefully straightened things out (we’ll find out when the pharmacy’s shipment arrives today).
Somehow the event managed to give me a headache that followed me on to my trip to Trader Joe’s. I was glad the heat was still low, as I waited in line to go in, but managed to get confused about their new social distancing dots near the cash register that weren’t there a few weeks ago. I also realized that I had forgotten one of the items I wanted to purchase, as I loaded the loathsome paper bags into the trunk (since they won’t let us use our own bags now out of caution). In the “olden days” I would have gone back into the store to get that other item, but seeing a longer line than I had originally been in, I decided I could go without.
All of these little petty annoyances shouldn’t be so problematic, but accepting this new normal doesn’t mean I have to like it. I don’t plan on yelling at store clerks or having a public meltdown (boy, do I hope that doesn’t happen), but I foresee more headaches ahead for all of us.
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