Doing well, Shaaron, thanks. But it sounds like that burn of yours isn’t doing any better at all.
We hunted around today and scrounged up enough TP for Kenny and Jenny. They go through an unusual amount of it because of Kendra’s nightly enemas....once she is done with her 45 minutes or so on the toilet and gets down to go play, she might well leak some more, requiring a few more cleanups. And they can’t afford the old “stock up” routine. Most times they are doing well to get just what they need a for week or two. Now that the State and Federal authorities are investigating exposure to Coronavirus by the kids from Katie’s school who just finished traveling to regionals and then the State Championships, and where Jenny also works, things in our tiny little town are getting tense. I guess we thought our place in the state, as rural as we are, insulated us. We were wrong.
The store in a Lovell, 6 miles away, is about out of everything. If you want perishables like fresh fruits and veggies and eggs, you might be okay. Milk, butter, breads, meats, canned goods, paper products, not so much. And why do people need a ton of candy to get through this? The girls like M&Ms so I always try to pick some up for them. Jenny also uses them to bribe Kendra. Not a family sized bag in the store. So we went to Blair’s in Powell, about 25 miles from here and a much bigger town. We had a little better luck there, but again TP was scarce. We bought one pack since they have a sign limiting to one package per customer, please. I don’t understand people - one guy went with his two teenagers and they each got another cart and put a package in each. When they went through the checkout, all 4....Mom, Dad, and the two kids, each checked out individually and 4 multi-packs went out the door and into their van. That’s 3 packs someone else can’t buy. The lady at the checkout asked her coworker if she’d seen that. Yep, but “per customer” means “per customer” and technically they made 4 separate customers. They’ll probably send the dog and the cat tomorrow, even if they have to find strays to use. We did buy Jenny two refill packs of Baby Wipes along with the TP, hoping that might help them out with Kendra’s issues. The kids were very grateful - wonder if we’ll look back and remember the time a pack of toilet paper, two packs of Baby Wipes, and two individual sized bags of M&Ms seemed like a gift from heaven.
But it’s here in the county now, and we’d do well to remember it. Jenny debated about pulling Kendra from school, as they are recommending for kids with conditions like hers. But shoot, I reminded her that she works at the school and at the hospital, so if Kendra’s going to get it it could just as easily come home from work with her. If we want to self-quarantine here, that’s a little tough, unless we don’t plan on getting any mail for a month. We have a 15 bed hospital in Lovell with 3 doctors and about 5 PAs on staff who split their time between the 85 bed Senior Care Center, the clinic, and the hospital, which are all in the same building. Right now the hospital and Care Center are literally locked down. No employee badge, you ain’t going in. Jen forgot hers and had to go home for it tonight, so she called Tam to remind her, too.
I’ve been joking around about this since it started. I’m not laughing anymore. Little things we don’t even think about - the change you’re handed when you shop. The keypad on the credit card machine. The self-checkout stations (if you use them) at Walmart. People handling produce to find what they want just before you handle it to find what you want. The kids in the food prep areas of your local fast food joints. The seats on the school busses. I mean, how are we really going to stop this?
And a Masonic brother was talking to Ken about not going to Casper for the state-side Scottish Rite meeting tomorrow and he told Ken something that should be terrifying. He said that he is a janitor/maintenance man at the mall. He told Ken that before this scare, he usually changed the soap dispensers in the ladies’ room once or twice a day. In the men’s room it was more usually once or twice a month. A month!!! He said when he’s in there working, and a guy comes in, the usual practice was for the gentleman to do what he came in there for, turn on the water and flick his fingers under it a few times, dry off his fingers and leave. No soap, no washing, just a quick rinse and out the door. I thought Ken was kidding. But he says he‘s seen it too. I may never go anywhere again!
The rest of the day was uneventful.
