Signs of coronavirus times: The sneeze that paralyzed a store and other Florida yikes! | Opinion
Signs of the times:
You make your morning coffee and inhale deeply into your cup, not with the purpose of enjoying the aroma in a moment of namaste mindfulness — but to check your sense of smell.
Losing it is one of the first signs of the novel coronavirus infection, and you’re having to inch your nose too deep into your cup to get a solid whiff.
Your sense of smell is there, but not as strong as it used to be.
Allergy season has kicked in, you console yourself. You’re getting older. You lose some stuff, you gain some stuff.
Or, did the guy who sneezed twice in a row near you at Whole Foods in Pembroke Pines — frame-freezing the moment of dread for everyone around him — reach you?
You did wait patiently behind him and his companion, both wearing masks like you, while they rummaged through a freezer. Then, you followed them right in there to get your ginger-spiced beets.
COVID-19 or not, you want what you want.
You’re an American.
The reports of supermarket employees infected scare you, but not enough to go without.
Americans are experiencing what it’s like in Cuba, Venezuela without coronavirus | Opinion
COVID-19 testing
Signs of the times:
You take a drive in the name of journalism, the same route you used when all you wanted was to get the hell out of town, and the first highway traffic sign that comes up on I-75 gives you directions to the COVID-19 testing site at C.B. Smith Park in southwest Broward.
No reported delays. No warning to watch out for motorcyclists. No silver or amber alert.
No need for the GPS to point you toward the fastest route.
Only the fools driving at more than 90 miles an hour through empty highways remind you that this is still us.
Welcome to Florida, home to 6,338 confirmed coronavirus cases, and 77 deaths as of midday Tuesday. The state hotbed is concentrated in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties with 3,649 known cases and 29 deaths.
Your typical Floriduh man is out there spreading coronavirus. Time for a lockdown | Opinion
Quarantine birthdays
Signs of the times:
Your good friend is having a milestone birthday.
The self-quarantined girlfriends who were supposed to brunch at a Miami foodie hot spot opt for a surprise group call.
Do you Zoom? Do you Facetime?
That’s the question in coronavirus times.
It is as debated as restaurant choice.
While you wait, you use your last two organic eggs to bake chocolate chip muffins as stand-ins for cake.
All of your best friends’ faces appear in little squares on your iPhone.
You bring a muffin to the call with a lit candle, everyone sings “Happy Birthday,” and we make the birthday girl pretend to blow it out. Our singing isn’t a smooth rendition on either pitch or timing — definitely not like the Back Street Boys in The iHeart Living Room Concert for America, magically synchronized from different cities — but the job of spreading joy is done.
When everyone is happily chatting away about their coronavirus social distancing reality, the birthday girl runs out of battery.
Surprise!
The winners are the neighbors who get front-door delivery of your yummy muffins.
This is one strange coronavirus birthday. The only living thing I’m hugging is a tree | Opinion
Yard work mask recycled
Signs of the time, miscellaneous:
You wash in scalding water and laundry detergent the pre-coronavirus disposable dirty, sweaty 3M mask you used for yard work.
Nurses and doctors need them more. You make do with what’s in the house.
You’re grateful for the 2019 bout with the flu and bronchitis that you thought was the end of your life as you knew it. It means you have supplies you could need in this pandemic. Now that they’re scarce, you have a decent amount of Flonase, inhalers, and allergy medications.
You praise the wisdom of the Cuban-American developer who included a bidet in the master bathroom, just like your thrifty Cuban parents had installed in their American bathroom. It’s a prized possession when you’re on a ration plan with toilet paper and wipes.
Ah, ah, ah, CHOO
About that paralyzing sneeze...
You’re afraid to eat the frozen and canned food you bought in anticipation of a long lockdown, for the shelter-in-place advice, for the stay at home order now in South Florida. For whatever you want to call doing the right thing. That’s what sent you early to Whole Foods, a mix of the anxiety of not having enough during tougher times ahead — and nostalgia for the normal.
By noon, you’re cursing the shopping trip.
You’ve developed a sore throat. By 3 p.m. you’re suffering from exhaustion.
You sleep on-and-off the rest of the day and into a continuous loop through the night.
In the morning, you wake up feeling much better.
You inhale deeply the coffee, grateful for work-at-home deadlines that get you out of your head. But you linger over the bright yellow daffodils you picked up at Whole Foods.
You think back to the moment you walked through the automatic doors — and the array of flowers greeted you as they always have, plentiful and life-affirming.
You reveled in the variety, the colors and the smells, as if you were at a Paris outdoor market.
And you forgot.
For a necessary moment of respite, you forgot the pandemic times.
