Viral Fighting??

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We checked with neighbors to see if they needed anything from the supermarket. No one did, but neighbor Shawn and I were laughing about shopping at Ingles. I said we were going for the thrill of it, as well as getting necessities.

She texted, “We all must be so bored that we go to Ingles for our thrills!! Take it all in for me.”

John and I had walked through a couple of aisles, following the one-way arrows, when the store manager greeted us. We responded by asking how he was doing. He explained that business was rough. He gives a pep talk to his workers every day, because they are on the front line to fight COVID-19.

He said, “You wouldn’t believe the senior store hour on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. The people get in fights – blood all over the place!! It’s the first hour of the day EVERY Tuesday and Wednesday!”

We were aghast. I apologized to him for my age group, which did nothing for the situation, but hopefully made him feel a little better. He said a customer accosted him the day before, demanding that everyone in the store wear a mask and gloves. He gently told him that they followed all the state and federal rules, and he had no authority to make workers do any more than that. Workers handling food wear gloves, but they always have. An inspector comes every day to make sure all workers are in compliance.

I said our daughter is a cashier at a supermarket in New Jersey. He responded, “I wish her all the best. I know what my cashiers go through, and it must be awful for her where the virus is so much worse. Keep up the good work.”

As we ended the conversation, I said, “At your meeting tomorrow, tell them a cheering squad was here for them.”

He laughed and said he appreciated it and would tell them.

After we checked out, I took a shot of the front of the store and sent it to Shawn.

“Whoop whoop!!!” she replied, always ready to enter into the spirit of the day.

Most shoppers are wearing masks.
Hummingbird feeder

A bird footnote: Joyce texted, “They are here! The hummers are here!”

The hummingbirds are here a day earlier than I expected, but I went right home and boiled sugar water for them. The first feeder is on my deck. I must remember to bring it in tonight when the temperature goes below freezing.

Published by Anne Mehrling

I'm a retiree who loves to write about life in the mountains of North Carolina.

Published

52 thoughts on “Viral Fighting??”

  3. Great post. I work at a Grocery Store and mainly in Sanitation. Many do not hone in on what we have to go through. I change gloves often, most of the time for customers to see me in the act, and try to direct the traffic to maintain distance for customer protection. All this may be a little daunting and inconvenient. We will never be too safe to protect each other. Every effort will be a step in normalcy. Customers do offer the opportunity to endure.

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  4. My husband has been doing all of our shopping so I haven’t experienced any of the weirdness. He hasn’t seen any fighting but mostly he says people just avoid even looking at each other and have a look of fear when you do see their eyes.

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  5. The grocery store we go to doesn’t have senior hours. We go early to avoid crowds and it’s always civilized. Each time we go there are new rules. We won’t need to go for a while so we’ll see what new stuff happens til then.

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  6. Masks and gloves may not be a complete protection but they do help. We were not allowed to wear them at my work even though we had full physical contact with people. It should be a matter of personal choice for cashiers too.

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      1. We were ordered not to as the authorities said it wasn’t necessary unless someone had symptoms. How do you know they’re not incubating something? It was all about image and the standards for the state. It may also have been about shortage of PPE and the cost of buying it.

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        1. We heard that a mask was more for the protection of others than for yourself. It would keep droplets from spraying from your face. I thought about holding my breath while in the store, but my lungs weren’t big enough.

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  9. That is amazing – the fighting. We are a good month into this situation and I’m assuming the store shelves are stocked again, so this is disheartening. My friend Ann Marie, now in quarantine, tells me that even with senior hours twice a week, it was still extremely crowded her last time there (about a week ago). She felt triumphant to have finally bought toilet paper after trying for four weeks. People are complaining that they see shoppers cast off their gloves and masks and deposit them in the parking lot, next to the garbage cans. I have no words for that. The hummers are not going to be here for a while – we have some snow flurries tonight. They would not like that too much – cold toes, and their sugar water will freeze. I’ll look forward to any photos of the hummers with a rainbow matching their iridescent feathers in the background.

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  12. That’s one busy store Anne. I went to the shops for the first time today in over 4 weeks, fully gloved and masked but there were queues as people were being let in a few at a time/. I’ll go tomorrow, early. Actually now that I remember there ARE early senior hours …. mmmm, that’s what I’ll do.

    How lovely to anticipate humming birds!

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    1. There were very few people in our supermarket when I took the photo. Half the people showing were employees. We thought they were going to be counting the people going in and restrict the number, but I guess it wasn’t necessary.

      I hope your next shopping trip will be less crowded.

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  13. Your photo is making me nostalgic, which is difficult to do. I haven’t been in a store for weeks. I like grocery shopping but won’t risk the virus until this all calms down.

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  14. That’s horrible it’s so rough for the grocery store workers. Hope Kate stays safe. I am glad you were there to let them know they are valued.

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  15. Those wacky seniors – fighting over toilet paper, I bet! I hope you get a photo of some of your hummingbirds. They are some of my favorites. When we visit our Colorado son, he always has a variety of hummers at his feeders. We just get the ruby-throated ones around here.

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  16. We are in the middle of a terrible outbreak, so we haven’t gone anywhere. Fortunately I always had food on hand well before this crisis. Now I just have to hunt down produce on line which actually takes a fair amount of time. But it is very exciting when I find it. (I am taking my excitement where I can find it!)

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        1. Now that is something I would do. John always said I would clean up before we ate if I could. I don’t worry about it any more, since he volunteered to do the kitchen cleanup.

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  17. Aww! Lucky you! You got to go to the store!!! Sniff… I can’t because since I’m over 70 I’m urged to stay home; John does our shopping. Also, even if I wanted to pretend I was younger and go with him, I can’t because they’re only allowing ‘one person per household’ into the store. This is to prevent crowds. Sigh… I miss shopping… Who would’ve thought it. As they say: You never miss the water ’til the well runs dry.

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  18. My human put out a feeder once in front of my window so I could watch but all I ever saw were wasps bullying the birds away and eating the nectar themselves. She decided to stop feeding the wasps so now I have nothing to watch.

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  19. How in the world can others bring such misery to these “essential workers”? The very ones ensuring we can continue to pick up groceries. Glad to read that the hummingbird feeder is out and ready to receive some pretty visitors.

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