The New Normal (Ughh)

My mask is tight around the ears. It stings sometimes to wear it. Then my glasses often fog up too. My vision gets fuzzy as a result. But my vision is definitely fuzzy without my glasses. It makes shopping a veritable challenge, particularly if I'm shopping from a list my wife prepared.

Welcome to the new normal.

Even though we're at phase something-or-another here in Michigan that allows more businesses to open, we must remain vigilant. Heck, we must remain vigilant anyway because rules vary from business to business, place to place.

For example, some local pizza shops will allow you to enter their shop to pick up their pizza, while others do not. I ordered three pizzas on-line for my wife's birthday party from the local pizza joint, then drove over at the appointed time and waited ten more minutes in their parking lot before a young gentlemen delivered three boxes to my car. Four boxes actually, so I asked if they all were mine (I knew they couldn't be), and he said “Oops” and pulled one box out. Then I drove off.

Turns out the two of the three pizzas were for other people. We ordered pepperoni; we got Hawaiian. Not wanting to hold up the party any longer, we settled for the three we got. Then the phone rang. It was the pizza joint. Did we get the right pizzas? Uh, no. Do we have to bring them back? No, but they wanted us to come down to pick up the pizzas we DID order. So we did. Anybody out there want leftover Hawaiian pizza?

Disgruntled with these folks, I tried ordering on-line from a different local pizzeria on another occasion. When I picked out my pizza, size, crust flavor, said 'no' to extras and drinks, gave them my credit card information as well as my personal information all on my computer, I got to the check-out page. You had to agree to their “terms of service”.

What was that? I decided to click on their terms of service and—holy cow!--there was an awful lot of fine print. I scanned it best I could, got back to the terms of service page and clicked the box. Then I tried to check out. “Your time has elapsed for this order,” the message came. I had to start from scratch, it said. I didn't.

Welcome to the new normal.

We had our new normal dentist appointment today. My wife and I waited in the car till our hygienist came out to check our temperatures. They came out for me first. Close to normal. But it was a hot day and by the time my wife's hygienist came out to check her temperature it was over 100 degrees. They asked had we visited any Covid hot-spots lately? Arizona was mentioned in there, as was Texas.

I did confess we had traveled to Shipshewana, Indiana, to do some shopping. I wasn't sure what phase they were in there, not that it would have told me anything anyway, but I was thankful when we went in to shop at a local indoor mall, EVERYONE wore face masks and signs warning people that it was required were everywhere.

Then we went across the street to the cheese and meat store. The new normal there apparently is the old normal. Hardly anyone wore masks or tried to keep a social distance. There was barely even elbow room in there and lots of shoppers. We hurriedly got our scrapple (can't be found in Michigan) and left. Very frustrating when you're following the guidelines to protect others and they aren't reciprocating in kind. Unfortunately, we're finding such behavior is the new normal as well.

With the local library the new normal is that you order the books you want to borrow on-line, then go to the library to pick them up. I ordered a couple books that way this week. Then when I was notified that they were ready, I went to pick them up.

Now the library was really set up to handle the new normal. There were directional arrows on the sidewalk outside as well as on the floor inside. Tables, chairs and ropes kept guiding you to the front desk then back out, all one way so you never had to pass another patron . . . or any stacks of books that might tempt you to browse a little.

Why couldn't they have had something like this at that cheese shop? Obviously the library was prepared for the new normal. But for all their efforts, the library was empty. I was the only patron who was in there to pick up a book. Funny but it's the first time I can remember not having to wait to check out. Maybe there's an upside to this new normal after all.