Mornin', y'all!
I've just about gotten used to the sneeze guards and now-you-see-product,-now-you-don't stocking issues at the grocery stores, but yesterday, I encountered coronavirus craziness at a whole different level. BB2K wanted to get some hardware cloth for a project, so we stopped at the big box home center down the road from us. I had warned her that it was bound to be busy; all the DIY'ers with time on their hands are getting caught up on the projects they hadn't had time for before. All I can say is, I'm glad she had that idea yesterday.
They had floors near the checkouts marked out with lines and "wait here" boxes; that I expected. What I didn't expect was that they have closed the doors between the "box" and the garden center. Spring is in full flush here, so of course, the garden center is busy anyway, but apparently, everyone and their best friend is doing gardening projects. They have opened a gate that normally is only for trucks doing deliveries and whatnot, and made it the entrance; the area near the checkouts is marked "exit only." They had an employee stationed at the exit acting as a traffic cop, because of course, having to walk al-l-l-l the way down to the furthest end to get in makes no sense under normal circumstances. He said that today, they will be limiting how many people can be in there at one time, which means lines at the checkout and lines just to go in. He said that last Saturday, some folks got a bit testy, but when he told me how much they had done in sales just through the garden center, I had to agree, they need to do something to keep some space between the customers. "Stay at home" doesn't mean we are under house arrest, but we all need to use our noggins, y'know? If you can't time your visit to avoid the crowds, you need to be patient and cooperate with people who are doing the best they can under conditions nobody ever expected!
And, I hope in some ways you don't get to see it.
