It’s hard to believe but the coronavirus pandemic is only two months old. It seems longer….a lot longer. Remember how scared you were in those early days? Remember how careful you were about everything? Are you still scared? Are you still as careful?

You walk into a grocery store, eyeing everyone as if they had the plague. Who knows….maybe they do? You move quickly through the aisles, grabbing what you need to feed yourself and your family. You check out without talking to anyone. You get out of the store as fast as you can.

You get home, unload the packages and wash them off. Are you still doing that? You can’t trust the grocery store workers, can you? Are you taking it as a matter of faith that they don’t have the coronavirus? Of course not. Even when you do curbside pick-up for your groceries, you’re extra careful. Why wouldn’t you be? A stranger is now handling every single item of your order. You’re now putting an extra set of hands between you and your food. An extra degree of closeness between you and the virus. Plus, what if the store screws up your order and you have to go inside to straighten things out? When that happened to one of my orders, I had to spend fifteen minutes inside, talking to three different departments, before they finally got it right. When I got home, I immediately stripped off my clothes and threw them in the washing machine, with extra detergent. I then took an long, hot shower as if I could wash away the virus.

I admit I was scared. SCARED A.F!!

What about when you order a meal from a restaurant? Think about how many hands are handling your food. How trusting are you or do you just take a leap of faith that everything will be okay? Sorry if I scared you.

Let’s take a simple meal at a fast food restaurant as an example. Someone will be working at the grill making your burger. Another person will be handling the deep fryer for your french fry potatoes. A third person is manning the soda machine for your drink. There may even be a fourth person who puts the meal into the bag and hands it to you. Then there’s the cashier who takes your payment. Yeah, I may be overestimating the amount of folks, but it is possible. For sure, there will be two folks handling your food….and with ready made food, you aren’t washing it before it goes into your body. Yeah, I know restaurants are taking strict precautions now…way more than normal. The workers are wearing masks and gloves. All work stations are disinfected often. Still….you never know. How could you?

Pretty scary when you think about it..and I’m sure most of us try not to think about it. Yet most of us are now doing it at least once or twice a week. That’s a pretty big leap of faith. That’s a lot of trust in other humans during a pandemic.

Every so often paranoid thoughts like this pop into my mind. Last week, I was watching a television show where they mentioned hot fudge sundaes. Mmmmm….sounds pretty good, doesn’t it. That’s what I thought, too. I wanted a hot fudge sundae, but the question was where? There’s a Baskin-Robbins down the street. It’s attached to a Dunkin’ Donuts where I get coffee a couple of times each week. If I can trust them to make coffee, why not a sundae?

I then started thinking about all the different parts needed to make the dessert. Three scoops of ice cream, a couple of different toppings, whipped cream, maraschino cherries…..got to have that cherry! One person can’t possible handle that…especially in a pandemic? The thinking became overthinking. I lost my faith in humanity. I lost my trust in the food industry. No hot fudge sundae for me.

It’s ten days later and I’m still thinking about that sundae. I still haven’t got one. I’m just not ready. I had to draw the line somewhere and apparently ice cream is where my line is. I never would have guessed that. I suppose I can head to the grocery store, get all the items needed and make my own hot fudge sundae. Ice cream, hot fudge, whipped cream and cherries….hmmmm…I wonder how many hands touched those?

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