I have to the conclusion that there are two kinds of people; Those who like fried goat with spicy avocado garlic sauce, and those who don’t. I fall in to the former category, and I really don’t know why I told you all this, except that I just tasted a new recipe and I can’t make it because I don’t have any chipotle sauce.

I’ve actually needed the stuff for over a week but nobody was leaving the house due to the virus. Can you believe that? In my house I have three drivers, a son who loves to ride his bike around the city, and a daughter who walks several miles a day and nobody was going near a store to get me some freaking hot sauce. I even tried to solicit a trip. I would go around to various members of my family and ask if they needed anything at the store. They all said no. I decided I would go, if someone made the trip worth it. So, I asked for another few days. No one needed anything so I never got my hot sauce.

Finally, yesterday, I could stand it no longer and I announced I was going to the store. I almost made it to the door when my wife came to me with a list of six items. I asked, if she had a list why didn’t she tell me about it on all the previous days? I was informed that she didn’t want to send me out but as long as I decided to go, I should pick up her stuff as well.

This was bad, but when all three of my children did it to me as well, it was worse. I was now carrying lists worth three-hundred-dollars and all I was getting was a lousy bottle of hot sauce for two-seventy-nine. Life is not fair.

The first problem was totally expected, I had to put on a mask. I selected a Darth Vader mask. It was great and I could do that heavy breathing thing so good. I even walked over to the dog and breathed heavily and said, “Spot, I am your father. Search your feelings you know it’s true.” All he did was search his hind quarters for fleas. I tried the same thing with my wife but all she told was this was the wrong kind of mask. She made me take it off and made me wear some cloth-flowered thing that went over my mouth and nose, and around my ears. Boring! I love her but she has no sense of cool.

Anyway, I drove to the market with my flowered mouth and parked. The thing was, that shopping had changed. When I got to the door, a guy with a black mask gave me a cart. He informed me he had just cleaned and sanitized it. I said, “Thanks,” and secretly wished I could have traded masks. I pushed the cart into the store and, yuck. The whole thing was covered with a thin soapy slime that smelled like alcohol. Just inside the door there was a lady passing out non-latex-powder-free gloves. I was ready to pass but she insisted I take a pair so that if I touched anything, I would stay safe. As I was putting them on, I asked about the cart slime. With a concerned look in her eyes she rubbed her fingers over the cart. No slime? Then I felt my fingers inside the gloves. The gook was still on my hands and being protected by the gloves. I was going to lose this argument no matter how I tried, so I moved on, wearing the floral mask, as my hands smelled like they’d been drinking.

Once inside the store I was sure glad of that mask though. All the other men had on manly masks of camo, or fake sharp teeth. One even had a great big green frown. Those were cool, but my flowered mask was better; hiding all of my embarrassment for wearing a flowered mask.

   So, then I went up and down the aisles and started feeling a little lucky. The cart the man gave me wasn’t giving me any trouble at all. In fact, it was gliding along like I had never seen a cart go before. Then I found out why. There was so much sanitizer on the wheels and the floor, the wheels weren’t turning at all. It was acting like an ice skate and sliding up and down the rows. If they had a comment card at that moment, they would have gotten a five-star rating. Ah, but ratings are so fleeting. You see others noticed the skate-like performance as well and decided to turn the bread aisle into a hockey game.

I can’t say if it was an accident or not, but I was hip-checked by an old lady going for the sourdough rolls. I slid into the wall by the hot-dog buns and went to my knees. But I needed those Kaisers. Standing I nodded to a twenty-something girl and she took the lead. We got past the old lady using a diversionary tactic. Now, all there was between me and those rolls was a big guy in a white mask. The girl slid into a shelf and snagged some rye bread with a move worthy of a gold medal figure skater and then distracted Mr. White-Mask. He went for her and I scored those Kaisers with only seconds left on the clock. What clock? I don’t know, but it was a big win for me and I did my victory lap through the chips. Then the floor dried and my cart came to a stop faster than a fly on a windshield.

I recovered some of my dignity and reorganized the stuff which had fallen in my cart. Then I went back over to the egg area and switched my now broken dozen for a fresh one. Don’t judge, you all would have done the same thing.

Anyway, I was down to the last two things on my list; Chips and Charcoal. I got the chips easy enough but when it came to the charcoal I was faced with a dilemma. Charcoal bags weigh twenty pounds. On the top of my groceries were chips and eggs. If put the bag on top of them, they would be crushed. I would have to use the silly weird-shaped shelf on the bottom. The thing is I couldn’t get the big bag in between the lower cart and the shelf. I must have stood there trying to maneuver that bag for five minutes. Then it fell off before I got to check-out and I went through it all again. Then I had to pull it out again for the cashier. By the time I managed that, six folks in line were laughing, and that bag and I were thinking about putting together an act.

Well, I drove home with a whole new respect for my life, and a whole new love for the quarantine.

Hell yes! Let someone else go out and do the shopping!