it's a rare day when I find myself standing in solidarity with Meijer, the superstore.
I'm guessing 88.79% (too specific for guessing?) of my posts take a position opposite to Meijer's picture of the fantasy/ideal customer.
*extremely brief introspective sigh*
but like I said, I'm playing by the rules while my county's COVID-19 numbers are ominously slapped with the title "nation's hot spot". 🔥
about a month ago, in the throes of living the hot-spot life (a pandemic really changes the vibe of that cool/clubbing lingo), I donned a mask and strong-walked across the Meijer parking lot.
before I triggered the motion sensor for the sliding glass doors, I noted a sign asking for customers with the bullet-point symptoms to voluntarily refrain from entering the superstore, and requiring all who enter to wear a mask. ✓✓
knowing that bonafide surgical masks were scarcer than hen's teeth, (☜ for my Beverly Hillbillies' fans), I entered the store, sure that a doozy of a Meijer Chronicles post was about to unfold...
yeah, I spied the coveted N95 masks (what darkweb Amazon.com are they shopping at?!), and yes, surgical masks were all the rage, but then the variants got a little outlier-ish-y:
*sleep masks
*pulled up turtlenecks
*welder/grinder face shields
*'Merica neck gaiters
*napkins held to face
*and a toddler-size sweater (you go haggard mom who forget a mask and used whatever was not vomited or peed on in the back seat 👊🏼)
these were great, after all, necessity is the mother of invention, but as I navigated through the superstore, I discovered... *cue ominous organ music* the Mask-Refusers. those bare-faced malefactors who belligerently(!), and figuratively, spat in the safety-goggled eye of the CDC's advice.
oh, how I wish you could've seen the half-hidden fury of the Masked-Ones! who needs facial expressions, when the 👀 can say so much?! the side glances, wives elbowing their husbands, the pointing, the angry squints, the blatant smh(s).
I, along with three other tsk-tsk-ers, stood agape (behind our masks) in solidarity when a MR Obnoxious Cougher was approached by a Meijer associate, and politely asked to put on a mask, or leave the store.
I'm guessing OC was formerly a FIFA player because her outrage had to have been coached. the massive-lung fed-up-to-HERE expletives, and final HUFF that came out of her was epic(!), as in great-woolly-mammoth exhale epic. #prehistoricepic #nextlevelstuff
after the massive huff, and subsequent coughing spasm, she abandoned her cart and stomp/stagger-coughed away. the Masked Vigilante Community dispersed; very pleased with ourselves, I might add.
as I swooped into the parchment paper aisle (on the lookout for more banes of society!), still riding the euphoria wave from ridding the dairy section (and quite possibly the entire store), of "Covid Mary," a glance of irritation from a fellow parchment paper lover startled me.
my hand flew to my mask, was I exposed?! no, mask in place, and covering my nose. I walked on, maybe the glance was a fluke(?).
nope, not a fluke. aisle after aisle it became crystal-clear that I was now the target of disgruntled side-glances of the Masked-Ones. somehow, inconceivable to me, I had become a bane.
I turned into the bottled marinara aisle, aka all things Little Italy, where the withering glances escalated into the you-are-dead-to-me stare!
deciding against that week's spaghetti dinner plan, I made a dash to the end of the aisle, desperate to escape the stares and growls of the Corleone Family's henchmen. I darted into another aisle, and nearly careened into a cart leaving that aisle.
it was Harried Mom, her toddler's Oshkosh Bgosh sweater-mask muffled her apology.
"so, sorry!" as she adjusted the tightness of the mask's sleeves. "I'm so clueless, I didn't notice the arrows on the floor! sorry!" she wheeled passed me.
I heard myself whisper behind my mask, "arrows? floor?"
I glanced down; blogger instincts took over, I snapped this pic...
*much longer, and embarrassed, introspective sigh*
"ladies and gentlemen, put your slow clap hands together for the banes of the pandemic society: Mask-Refusers and... One-Way Obliviants!" 🙋🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️
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