Covid Chronicles. Chapter 22: Masks, Gloves, and Limited Capacity

 

Read chapter 21 here

Photos by Retiring Guy

Saturday, April 11 

 A number of local businesses have begun to set limits on the number of customers allowed to shop in their stores at any one time. Our neighborhood grocery store, the Willy Street Coop, is the most notable example of this restriction. After our first encounter with this system, JoAnna and I, together or individually, have had to wait to be waved in by a ‘greeter’ more than a few times. During our most recent experience, the wait was less than a minute. I took the above photo on our way home from an hour-long walk. Just passing by, in other words. The line zigzags to the left in order to reach the store’s entrance. Half of the eight people waiting, hands (some of them gloved) resting on sanitized carts or typing messages on their phones, wore protective masks. 

Both masks and gloves have become an increasingly common sight in stores. JoAnna and I haven’t taken up this precaution for a variety of reasons, mostly due to our belief due to our belief that it’s not all that effective a safety measure. Andy showed us a brief video made by a nurse on the topic of cross-contamination. Using paint, she demonstrates how easily germs are spread even when wearing gloves. We feel confident that maintaining social distance, regularly washing our hands, and, most importantly, adhering to ‘safer-at-home’ guidelines are the best preventatives. 

Returning home from a bike ride on a summer-like Tuesday afternoon, we stopped to talk with our neighbors Dave and Karen, who were sitting on their front stoop. They mentioned they had driven to Costco earlier in the day but didn’t bother to stop once they say how long the line was to get inside. 

“Do you know how many people they let in at a time?” I asked. “Willy Street has a limit of 30. I would think Costco’s would be much larger than that.” 

They didn’t know. 

The weather turned crappy the following day, with a light rain falling by early afternoon. 

“This might be a good time to give Costco a try,” I suggested to JoAnna. 

We had a long enough shopping list to make a trip there worthwhile. 

Sure enough, the parking lot was as underutilized as we’ve ever seen it during business hours, and the area used to store shopping carts just inside the entrance was filled to capacity. Andy cautioned us that the store was letting in just one person per card, so we both brought along our membership cards. He didn’t mention the source of his intel, which I suspect is dubious as there were couples and families milling around the store. (On the other hand, Menard’s, a home improvement store, prohibits anyone younger than 16 from entering the store, with or without adult supervision.) 

One of our other primary food shopping destinations is Brennan’s, a locally owned business that’s a combination of farm marker, butcher shop, deli and cheese mart. They sell the best produce in the Madison area. In fact, their oranges and grapefruit are consistently the sweetest and juiciest I have ever encountered. And nobody beats their fresh peaches in season. Brennan’s used to have a store just a mile from our house, a convenient bike ride away, but all the owner closed all four locations about three years, complaining that he couldn’t compete in Madison’s hyper-competitive grocery market. What a loss. We were crushed. Then six months later, the manager of the store on Madison’s far-west side announced that he was re-opening just that location under the Brennan’s name. He must be doing well as a complete remodeling of the interior is underway. There were at least a dozen other shoppers there during a visit I made earlier today. Knoche’s, our favorite meat market, probably doesn’t need to limit the number of customers in the store. Its primary customers are area restaurants. Granted, their overall business is down, with no onsite dining allowed, but plenty of places are still doing takeout and delivery. Many restaurants proudly proclaim on their menu that they purchase their meats from Knoche’s. It’s reputation for quality meat is well-known. Knoche’s reminds me a bit of the hold Foreman’s corner grocery Warren in that it has a “little store” feel to it. We tend to limit our purchases there to meat, as the rest of its limited-selection inventory is pricey. I will admit, however, that I recently bought a container of oatmeal there when everyone else was sold out during the initial, panic-stricken days of the pandemic. Now, as you can see, there’s an abundance of toilet paper available. At Costco, anyway.