COVID Madness — The Start?
Tina and I have been talking about how we must write down our experiences and thoughts during this pandemic. It’s been just over a week now since it’s hit society hard. 8 Days ago, I was picking up a VP from the airport to tour stores together – a pretty typical day, I guess. Effective that morning, field leaders had received an email announcing stricter standards with safety … this was around the time we started hearing the term ‘social distancing’.
After I dropped Mike (said VP) off at the airport, I headed south to El Paso, TX. It’s a 4 hour drive from ABQ. As I drove, I would periodically check the news on my phone (not the smartest thing but whatever). The news grew darker and darker. The news was a curiosity, though. Especially with Trump’s farcical leadership.
The President is just an embarrassment, frankly. His ramblings (‘Incredible’ ‘Tremendous’ ‘Huge’ ‘Great’ ‘Winning’) and inability to stick to the script for Pandemic Updates are just terrible. It is painful to hear him talk and it’s just best to ignore the news at this point. Washington (state) has even opted to not carry his updates live due to his messaging.
Every once in a moment I catch myself wanting to call a friend or relative to say ‘you’re never gonna believe the shit that’s going on right now – there is a friggin pandemic!’ But then I realize the entire world is going through this. Weird.
It was just this week that things started to feel like a science fiction movie. People were acting differently – you can see the worry and almost panic in peoples’ eyes. At the grocery stores, meat is sold out – cleared out. Cheese – gone. Milk, Eggs, Canned Food. I’ve never seen anything like it.
All news on the TV, web, apps on the phone – bad. Dire tales from elsewhere as it sweeps across the us from centralized hubs and spreading a web as you look at the maps.
Yesterday, one of my managers – who is married to a state trooper – informed me that the police were preparing for looting. Bothered me for a bit and I let it go, but then today I was with another manager who was former military and he said he was loading up on ammunition. It’s getting deep. Shit.
I went online this evening and purchased some supplies to help fortify, should it get to that. Not panicking, but preparing for the worst. WTF.