Back to the grocery this morning. They now have directional arrows taped to the floor. In spite of this, I saw more than one person moving in the wrong direction. I’ll be charitable here and attribute this to absent-mindedness and /or failing vision. It’s a mainly senior clientele after all.
On the other hand, a guy who must have been in his thirties or forties came up behind me and passed within maybe a foot and a half. As he went on his merry way his body language spoke of nonchalance. And I wondered if it would ever occur to him that one of us might have been taken by a fit of sneezing at that precise moment. One of those fits that can come on faster than you can react. Possibly he was lost in deep thought and had transported himself to the pre-corona era. But he just didn’t look very deep thoughtish.
I had a gaffe of my own at the checkout. They have these plastic separator things that you place on the conveyor to prevent confusion between your order and someone else’s. But you couldn’t reach one without violating space. So what I thought I’d do was position myself squarely on my side of the plexiglass and reach around. The cashier didn’t seem to think that was a good idea even though there appeared to be adequate spacing between me and the customer ahead of me. Looking back, I should have suggested that they remove those separators. Conflicting signals you know.
I noticed that they’ve gone back to playing old pop tunes over the p.a. system. It was Joe Jackson today. Oh alright.
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