So most of us would certainly agree it's been a year to forget (unless of course you were heavily invested in tech IPOs or living on Fantasy Island). Whether it be the fact we were deprived of watching professional sports, spend valuable time with our extended families or hang out with friends at a local sports bar, frustrations were more than abundant. But what about embarrassing moments? Surely you had some covid-related ones you'd rather forget. Well, I hope those moments brought you some laughter. But if they didn't, well then, by all means, feel free to laugh at me. And (all) my embarrassing moments.
Such as this one:
So in late March I headed out for my first covid grocery shopping “expedition”. First step: throw a mask around my head, and put some gloves on as well (given at first we were told covid could be easily spread from touching surfaces). This was before “designer” masks became a thing (I had a Kylo Ren Halloween mask I considered putting on but the wife strongly dissuaded me). So I put on the hospital one my doctor brother had given to me. Not sure if it was the fact I have pretty big ears or that I pulled too hard on the mask while putting it on but it ended up snapping on one side as I entered the grocery store. So I tied it in a bow tie around one ear and walked in, mask tilted to one side and bow tie know on the other. An attendant saw me walking in and seemed upset at me “sir you can’t wear gloves” so here I was having to stick them in my tiny little jacket pockets (think big gloves, little pockets).
Got my shopping cart and walked in trying to steer away from every person in the store like I was playing bumper cars (come on the first few days of covid were utter paranoia). Also being a little bit (ok a lot) of a germaphobe (hey who’s laughing now!) I decided to use a produce plastic bag to cover each of my hands and began adding items to my cart. That’s when someone tapped me on the shoulder. “Hey Paul” said the voice behind me. This was enough to startle me. After all I had been touched! I turned around and it happened to be the dad of a kid I had coached in soccer the last couple of summers. It didn’t take long to realize he had a twinkle in his eye that indicated laughter or amusement was going on under that sneaky mask of his. I mean granted, I knew my mask was crooked, and I was aware that I sounded muffled like Bane or Darth Vader behind my stupid blue hospital mask. I mean, all this was not that unusual.
It was not until I saw my reflection on the cheese counter window that I finally understood how “special” I looked. Fogged up glasses (masks and eye glasses were NOT meant to go together folks. Heck every time I would speak, even breathe, my glasses would fog up completely like if I was wearing one of those weed bong masks), a crooked mask with a bowtie around one ear, as well as two big gloves peering out of my jacket’s side pockets like some puppets trying to be rescued. As we parted ways, I waved goodbye to him with my plastic produce covered hands. Surely things couldn’t possibly get any more embarrassing right?
Wrong.
I pushed the cart over to the cereal/bread section, grabbed a couple of boxes of Vector, and then went to put it in the cart. Only this wasn’t my cart. You see I had accidentally (blindly? Hey my glasses had rendered me visually impaired) taken his shopping cart. There was no way in hell that I was going to return it to him even more so after having touched it. I had suffered enough humiliation for one day. There was only one solution at this point: run out of the store, and never shop there again. But as I walking out of the cereal section, I heard the same baritone voice “hey Paul, you wouldn’t happen to have seen my shopping cart would you? Someone must have taken it by accident”. “Oh that’s definitely weird, sorry no haven’t seen it” I muttered, red-faced, with his cart parked there just a few feet next to me.
