I’ve never liked grocery shopping before. I didn’t mind it, but more often than not I would choose to stay home. Now, I’d do anything to walk into a store.
I drive my mom to physical therapy every week. I don’t go inside the office. Across the parking lot, directly in front of me is a Super 1 Foods. I’ve never liked Super 1 very much. Now, it’s agony to sit in the car and stare at this store. What I wouldn’t give to browse the aisles, to help select our food, to compare prices.
It’s not just the shopping I want. No, I want to see faces. I’m not quarantined alone–far from it. Home almost seems too full sometimes, with an older brother home from college and three younger siblings.
No, I’m not separate from the human race. But I’ve always liked to people watch. I like to wonder about each passerby, to give them colorful stories and turn them into mythical creatures. I hunger for that silent companionship that shoppers have when they’re both looking at the same item, or when you have to figure out how to get a cart down a crowded aisle.
But now, the only strangers that I see are drivers in other cars. It only happens twice a week, and the glimpses last mere seconds.
I, a self proclaimed introvert, am longing to go shopping in the busiest store I can find. I want to spend the whole day in town, doing absolutely nothing. I want to go up and ask anyone and everyone whatever question springs to mind when I see them.
Insane, I know, but I blame the quarantine.
–Abbi Fisher, https://the-blue-shoe-skidoo.com/