A month of Sundays

(3 minute read)

In mid-March 2020 just before COVID-19 was officially declared a pandemic, I went to Sam’s Club to pick up groceries for the week and was shocked to find mostly empty shelves. There was plenty of Easter candy, but not much else. No bottled water, toilet paper, paper towels, laundry detergent, chicken, meat, fish, eggs, milk, juice, cheese, pasta, pasta sauce, cereal, or frozen foods (except for a few bags of frozen blueberries). There were apples, but no bananas or grapes or strawberries and suddenly I wanted bananas and strawberries more than anything. I circled the aisles and chatted with the other shoppers looking at what was left on the shelves.

When I got to the checkout line, my normally full cart was still mostly empty. I chatted with the man behind me as he unloaded his cart. He told me that he really liked brownies and, believe it or not, he could eat an entire box of brownies in a week. He was stocking up because there might not be any brownie mix in the stores for a few months. I counted 16 large boxes of brownie mix and noted that each large box was the equivalent of four normal boxes or four 8 x 8 pans of brownies. That’s a lot of brownies. He must have taken every last box in the store, not leaving any for anyone else. What did he think was going to happen anyway? What was everyone thinking?

For days I thought about that man and his brownies. Could he really eat four pans of brownies in a week? Could anyone for that matter? Or did he mean that he just ate one pan of brownies in a week?

I did the math. If he ate the entire box (four pans), how many brownies would he eat in a day? Did he cut each pan into tiny brownie bites or in big jumbo squares? Did he gorge himself by eating a lot of brownies in one sitting or did he spread them out throughout the day, having a few at breakfast, lunch, and dinner, plus snacks. And would he really eat so many brownies, day after day, week after week? Even if he ate just one 8 x 8 pan a week, it was awful to think about.

Maybe he made and sold pot brownies. Maybe he was planning to sell brownies at an inflated price from the back of his car or on eBay, like some people were selling toilet paper and hand sanitizer. Or maybe he thought he could trade brownies for toilet paper during the coming zombie apocalypse. What I think is more likely is that he was caught up in the panic buying at the store and when he saw the brownies that he loved, he impulsively bought every last box.

I’m writing this in April. The stay-at-home order has been in place for several weeks now. We are supposed to wear masks in public and stay a good six feet away from others, although there are still a few people who don’t bother. Over 3 million are ill worldwide and over 200,000 dead. The number of sick and dying is growing day by day. I lost my job because of COVID-19 and so theoretically my schedule is wide open. I’m keeping busy although I seldom leave my house and garden because leaving the house could mean getting exposed to the virus. Some days I need to remind myself what day it is because every day now feels like a Sunday and now it’s been an entire month of Sundays and I finally know exactly what that feels like.

When I shop these days, I wear a homemade mask and gloves. I pay with a card so I don’t have to handle that dirty, dirty money and risk infection. When I’m done shopping and back in my car, I take off the mask and gloves and cover my hands with hand sanitizer. I thought of the brownie man again when I was at Sam’s Club a few days ago and walked past a shelf full of boxes of brownie mix. Stay safe, brownie man. Enjoy your brownies. Some how we’ll get through this.