When I took the bus home yesterday after my gory grocery store misadventure, one passenger was wearing a mask, and two had brought their own cans of Lysol. They sprayed the seats heavily before they sat down, effectively turning the stuffy little bus into a sealed jar of aerosol propellant. My lungs were burning and I wanted to cough, but I didn’t dare because I was afraid the other passengers would panic if they thought I was sick.
That is not helpful.
The next day I was at Wal Mart, where every scrap of toilet paper and all the bleach and Clorox had been sold. No one had thought to buy toilet cleaner, however, even though as far as I know it’s about the same ingredients. That section of the household goods aisle was full, but the shelves around it were bare. They also seemed to have bought every last bottle of highly specific varieties of dishwashing liquid, leaving the others untouched. I got the impression they’d been buying everything labeled “antibacterial,” even though the COVID-19 is not a bacterium.”
A woman passed by me on her cell phone. “They buying toilet paper but not food,” she muttered, selecting a can of beans. “Coronavirus don’t cause diarrhea but they buying toilet paper.”
This is not helpful.
I was at Wal Mart so soon after Kroger because of my wonderful internet friends. I’d realized when I got home that the Friendship Room was going to be swamped. They are already passing out “to go” foods like sandwiches instead of making big pots of soup, to make it a little bit harder to spread germs around, and that can get expensive. The schools are all closed starting Monday, and although they’re going to keep the cafeterias open to pass out free breakfasts and lunches to those who qualify, I don’t see how everyone is going to manage to get their children there if the school buses aren’t running. At least some children are going to be left out without a lunch. And besides, if people are afraid to go out, then workers in many different fields are going to take a pay cut. While people with money are hoarding soap that kills the wrong microbe, people without money are going to find it harder than ever to get enough food to eat.
I decided I’d like to pack some lunches to bring to The Friendship Room, for them to distribute. But I didn’t have a cent to spare. I don’t know how we’ll get through the month as it is; I never do. I started a gofundme for one evening only, to see what my friends could scrape together, and I shared it to the Steel Magnificat facebook page just to see what would happen. I was flabbergasted to get well over three hundred dollars in the space of a couple of hours.
Rosie helped me throw together a shopping list with five food groups on it, things she liked to eat and things she’d always wanted to try if only she didn’t share her mother’s gluten sensitivity. We added up the prices to make sure it was within our budget– Rosie is as quick at math as I am, and unlike me, she likes it.
The next morning I went to Wal Mart, which was packed. The toilet paper and bleach were all sold out, despite the fact that Wal Mart was rationing them to two per customer. But they managed to keep groceries pretty well stocked, and the staff was more helpful and patient than Wal Mart staff have a reputation for being.
I filled a cart. Those of you who have several children are probably used to filling a cart all the way to the top, but I have only one child and rely on the bus for most of my shopping, so I never fill a cart to the top. This cart was stuffed, including the bottom rack, and that was a brand new experience. The friendly clerk at the checkout had to run and get me an extra cart just to drag it all out of the store. The friend who gives us rides to church took me home; she promised to come back in two hours so we could drop the food off.
I washed my hands and set to work, dividing big sacks of pre-cut vegetables into individual baggies with a packet of Ranch dressing each. While I was busy, Rosie did nearly everything else herself. She set up sixty open paper sacks and filled them: An Uncrustable sandwich, a Go-gurt, a string cheese, a package of butter crackers, a juice box, one of my bags of vegetables and dip, a fruit cup with a plastic spoon, two granola bars, and a cream-filled cupcake. One of the Go-gurt packets had broken open, so that person’s lunch sack got an extra string cheese. One of the fruit cups had leaked out the juice, so that person’s lunch sack got a fresh orange instead.
I asked Rose if she wanted me to take over after I finished my vegetables. She said she wanted to do it herself, so I bagged up the other things: three boxes of oatmeal packets, three mesh bags of tangerines, a bag of oranges, four bunches of green bananas. Twenty-three cans of different kinds of soup. Two cans of Chef Boyardee. Two just-add-water bowls of spicy miso soup. Four ready-made foam bowls of stew. Four plastic bowls of instant macaroni and cheese. Sixty lunches and about thirty breakfasts and dinners. You paid for all of that, Rosie organized it and my friend drove it; I just put it in a cart.
My friend came back with a palette of water and some more granola bars she’d bought, and we went downtown to drop everything off. Rosie helped carry. I told Rosie again and again how proud I was, and the volunteer who opened the door gave her a high five.
That’s helpful.
There’s a myriad of things we can’t control. There’s a world of suffering we can’t relieve. Whatever is going to happen is going to happen and it will cause a great deal of suffering we can’t avoid. But where we can be clearheaded and find a way to meet somebody’s needs, a few people, even just one, even for a day– that’s helpful.
That’s what we’re supposed to do, not just during emergencies but every day. Emergencies will always come, but there’d be fewer of them and they’d hurt fewer people if we always did what we were supposed to do.
I am grateful and in awe of all of you who helped yesterday night on such short notice.
Now, what shall we do tomorrow?
Image via Pixabay
Mary Pezzulo is the author of Meditations on the Way of the Cross.
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