word from St. Catharines
the journal of Michael Werneburg
twenty-seven years and one million words
Grandma reports this experience shopping for groceries in St. Catharines.
The grocery store this morning was a wakeup. It's going to take a lot of planning. I'll certainly be aiming for being there at 7 from now on.
1) Security guard at the door. Because I was there before the end of the senior/disabled hour, I walked right in.
2) Everyone trying diligently to maintain some distance between us.
3) Every other cashier open, not all, to maintain distance.
4) Lineup for all except self-help to checkout. It was (correctly) by the empty paper products aisle. You wait in the line until directed which till to go to. Then you stand on the sign beside the police-style tape until the cashier has finished with the person ahead. Then she calls you after that person has left.
5) As I left, passed the lineup to go in. It stretched around the side of the building.
6) The guy who got in line behind me just had beer. He had been in line once already but it was too early to pay for beer (can't do that before 9). So he told me, not maintaining quite the distance according to the paper signs posted, that he wasn't waiting, he was opening one now. Put his 6-pack on the empty toilet paper shelf and opened one.
I wish our government had been as fastidious.