A Pitiful Pitfall of COVID-19

When the Coronavirus epidemic hit, Irene was prepared. She is the type of worry-wort to carry hand sanitizer on her person, four bottles: one in her over-the-shoulder purse, one in each beige rain jacket pocket, and one in Bill’s brown tweed breast jacket pocket. With medical masks, blue latex gloves, and other health essentials previously purchased and stored in her bathroom drawers for years, Irene anxiously ran to check on her PPE (Personal Protection Equipment) stash.

Irene is a 65-year-old woman. She is married to her high school sweetheart of 40 years: Bill, a retired sociology professor. When Irene graduated from high school, she was set to attend nursing college in the fall; however, that summer, her father got sick and it was her duty to help her mother take care of him. Four years later, her father was better, and Irene was free to marry Bill. While Bill continued his studies and eventually completed his Ph.D., Irene worked to support Bill’s education and eventually, she became a childless housewife.

The sun is shining brightly on a Toronto afternoon and Irene is luxuriating in anxiety again. Irene sometimes thinks that Bill (who is the strong and silent type) lets her ‘do’ the worry and stress for them both. She wishes she could be free again, and just “skip the mask,” but secretly she’s happy not having to breathe in other people. She also likes to have an excuse to distance herself from others, even if some people think she is sick. She is sick, but not of the COVID-19 kind.

It is Irene and Bill’s once-a-week trip out of the house, due to the lockdown. They’re not supposed to shop together, but Bill is Irene’s support person. Bill and Irene watch many mask-less people stroll by, people wearing masks limping off their ears and mouths, or people running free and happy; meanwhile, people wearing the PPE correctly are walking faster, weaving away from and dodging people as they pass by.

“Bill, those masks hanging off their faces look like French bikini underwear sliding down their thighs before they take a #2.”

Bill chuckles. “Oh my. Irene. How do you see these things? And the things you say, darling.”

They arrive at Shopper’s Drug Mart. At the entrance, there is a homeless man trying to chat with people. Irene thinks to herself, “Why is he so close? We’re not supposed to be so close to each other.” There is a dog leashed to a pole near the front window. Irene’s eyes roll, “Aren’t we supposed to be social distancing? Ha. Why is this place so busy?” Irene spots some hand sanitizer on a counter and happily slathers her palms with it. But then she notices that customers are standing too close together. “Bill. Is it hot in here? My horoscope said this was going to be a bad day! What am I going to do if I get stuck in a line-up with these bozos? What if they don’t keep their distance?”

“You’ll be fine, Irene.” Irene untenses as she pats Bill’s breast pocket.

“Oh, look Bill, it’s our lucky day – they’ve got disinfecting wipes back in.” Bill nods aloofly. As Irene puts two large Lysol containers of wipes in her cart, a customer with one of those masks hanging off their chin, flashes wild eyes and a gaping mouth, “What do you have there? Disinfectant? It’s back in? Where can I get some?” Irene points to the quickly emptying shelf, and the customer yelps,” What? Only two? How many do you have?”

Irene’s arms fold across her chest. “Two. Well, it’s so people don’t hoard and empty the shelves again. Probably why it's on the shelf.” Softly, the customer agrees, and Bill smiles quietly with his eyes and gets closer to Irene, as they continue to shop.

They pick up all they need for the week and Irene and Bill walk towards the plexi-glassed register. Irene lets out a gleeful shriek when she spots the black taped physical distancing lines on the floor. There is a security guard there and Irene curls her lips as she remarks to Bill, “I guess they’re here to make sure people keep their distance? What are the chances that that will happen?” Irene is lightly biting and rolling her dry lips. As they go to line up, she runs into the woman she chatted with previously. The woman is standing about 2 metres away from the cash counter, but not on a black line, “Are you waiting for the cashier?”

“No, no,” as the woman scuttles away to look at another shelf.

Irene moves forward to get her stuff rung up. Shortly after, the woman appears again about a metre away from Irene this time. Irene is trembling. Irene tries to use her eyes and head to move the woman further away from her. But the woman isn’t budging. Finally, Irene blurts out with a grimace, “social distancing!”

“What? What? I, I... I’m far away from you.” Tsk.

“No, you’re not – it’s 2 metres!”

The woman snarls with raised eyebrows, “I am!”. And she doesn’t move.

Wanting to put an end to the mind games, Irene snaps, “I’m sick.”

The woman yells, as she jumps and skips backward, more than two metres, “you shouldn’t be here. I’m calling the cops. There’s a 1-800 number for sick people like you. Stay home!” The woman disappears into the store and Irene scratches her head. “She’s one to talk.”

“Bill, what’s going on with this craziness?” Bill stares out the window and stays quiet. Irene and Bill press on to get their stuff rung up. Suddenly, a much older mask-less, disheveled and dusty hunchbacked man rushes in with a shuffle. Irene notices the security guard glancing over to the cashier. When Irene sees this, she motions to bite her nails but remembers she’s wearing a mask. “Why is this man not wearing a mask? He’s high risk.” With sweat beading on her forehead, Irene weakly looks down at her shaking hands and tries to steady herself against Bill’s sturdy body. “What if he coughs at me?” The man inches towards the couple. Irene holds her breath. The old hunch-backed man looks up from his dirty eyeglasses and peeps over at Irene. Irene points at the black line for him to stay behind. The man waits a bit and then starts it up again – inching towards the couple. With a trembling lip, Irene says, “Stay!” With side-eye, the old man grumbles, shakes, and shimmies his body, but stays put. Irene says, as if a parent scolding a child, “Do you wanna get sick?” and turns to Bill, with a critical whisper, “this is getting to be dog training for humans.” Bill looks down at Irene with a smiling sigh and strengthens his hold on her. “It is what it is Irene.”

The cashier has seen all of this and once Irene gets to the plexi-glassed counter, she tries to poke her head under it and whispers to the cashier, “I’m not sick; I just wanted her to keep her distance.” The cashier gives Irene a commiserating fed up look.

As they leave the store, the dog near the doorway licks Irene’s hand. Irene laments, “Why me? ‘Hell is other people’, but this is an animal? Why me, Bill? At least that man didn’t cough or sneeze at me.” Bill shakes his head, pulls out some anti-bacterial from his pocket and sprays Irene’s hands.

After the commotion and because of the traffic being uncharacteristically sparse, with frozen wide eyes - Irene and Bill watch silently in horror as they occasionally look over at each other. The old hunched-back man shuffles across two cross walks, coughing, sneezing, and hacking. “Phew, that was a close one. I admire him for holding it in, but why? I mean, two crosswalks of that and somehow he held it in in the store? What’s up with that? Toronto!”

As they wait for a taxi, the homeless man is still hanging around the storefront and he shouts defiantly with squinting eyes and a crooked mouth, "why is everyone wearing a mask?"

Irene shakes her head and raises her hands up in the air. “Are you serious? What is wrong with you people?” Normally, Irene wouldn’t respond to such a question from a stranger; however, a question was asked, and she is fuming. She is tired of being shamed and tired of people not caring. She is sick of Torontonians, even if she is one herself.

Irene looks back at the mask-less man. "Why? WHY? Coronavirus, that's why. I may be infected, and don't know it. That's Why! You may be infected, and don't know it - that's why. Why? Why aren't YOU wearing a mask?" The man stuffed his hands in his pockets, held his stance with a fixed expression, and didn’t say anything back.

Although Bill appears visibly serene, as if he were a monk, Irene can tell that he is losing his patience because of the little tell-tale twitching of his eyes. Bill squeezes Irene’s arm firmly yet gently. “We are all trying to navigate the world to find our new normal; he’s still trying to find his. We’re all anxious.” Irene relaxes her furrowed brow, even if still a little irritated.

The mask-less homeless man hovers about while Bill and Irene huddle. Bill comments, “It’s a war on humans, this virus.” Bill saw the cusping paradigm shift in humanity. “We have a common enemy for once and it isn’t other people. But this man is holding on to his old normal. Most of the people we ran into today seemed to be oblivious to how they’re harming other people.”

“That’s true Bill. That demonstration over at Queen’s Park last weekend was disappointing - fighting for the freedom to do whatever they want? Don’t they understand the concept of ‘share the air’? They are impinging on MY right to be well and to live.” Irene wearily continues with her rant, “I’m tired of this Bill. I am the victim. People! I haven’t done anything wrong. Why should I be ashamed for doing the right thing? I’m trying to protect myself and I’m trying to protect these people, but they’d rather be anarchists,” she said with condemnation. “If they want to be anarchists, they need to find an island of people like them or no people on it, so they can do whatever the hell they want and leave us alone.” Bill’s eye is twitching as he stretches out to look for a taxi.

The homeless man overhears their conversation and claps back, “It’s paranoia. This virus isn’t more serious than the flu. It’s a hoax!”

Irene fidgets with the anti-bacterial in her pocket. “A hoax?! Even if it was just the common flu… and it’s not, if everyone wears a mask – it lowers the risk for all. What if I’m sick and I don’t know it? And then I cough near you? And you’re not wearing a mask and you might end up sick yourself. We don’t know who is and isn’t sick!” Irene pulls the bottle out of her pocket and rubs some of the anti-bacterial gel into her hands.

“I didn’t know that.” Meekly, as he looks at Irene’s hands, “but I couldn’t afford it, even if I wanted to wear a mask”.

Irene didn’t expect to hear that. Her face flushes. She puts aside the luxury of her anxiety. She tries to avoid looking like she has pity for the homeless man. She thinks he deserves what she has too, and she can afford to share. “Look. I get it. We’re all in this together.” Irene takes out one of her hand sanitizers from her pocket, opens it up, and offers him some. He presents his palms.

“That’s generous of you ma’am.”

She looks at him with surprise. Irene then pulls out a few packaged masks from her purse, “Here.” The stranger puts one on and stuffs the others in his grungy grey coat pocket. Irene gives him the bottle from her purse, along with some change.

“I’m George. George Adamos Thank you very much, ma’am.”

“Irene. And I have a ton of them.”

“Why do you have so many?”

Irene attempts to protect herself with a scowl, “because it’s a quirk of mine.”

“No offense ma’am, but isn’t that a little crazy?”

With pursed lips, Irene says, “This is why I hide it. We aren’t safe. I’m not safe. You’re not safe." She continues rapidly, “because I carry hand sanitizer, I was ready to protect myself from this nasty virus. When it was sold out, I had it in stock – plenty of it, in my bathroom. How is THAT crazy? This little bottle is medical magic.” Irene thinks that what she just said did sound a little crazy.

Irene hears a large stomach grumble coming from George. “Ok. I’m going to go get some food now”, and he hobbles away.

Bill distracts Irene with a kiss on her forehead and adds speculation, “One day everyone will have an infrared tattoo with our health status. Then, these worries of yours Irene will be a thing of the past. Then again, we’ll have another problem on our hands.”

"You know Bill, I don’t know how you suffer me. I think I'm one of those oblivious people that you were talking about before. That poor homeless man. Maybe that old hunch-backed man needed attention – same as the woman. I’m sorry for being self-absorbed and not recognizing you’re struggling too. I don't know what I would do without you."

“I don’t know what I’d do without you, Irene. You’re my Ruby Tuesday.”

The taxi arrives.