Having a job right now during this pandemic is a big deal when the country first began the first self quarantining procedures, we where given a piece of paper stating that our job was essential and if we were to be pulled over we had only to hand the paper over to authorities and they would allow us to get to work.

In the beginning just about every major retail and grocery store, We’re out of everyday items like toilet paper, baby wipes, hand sanitizer, any kind of disinfectant such as bleach,Lysol,peroxide rubbing alcohol. If it was used to kill any kind of germs or to wipe your behind you couldn’t find it anywhere. It became so bad that retailers had to put signs up limiting the amount of products that you could take. People were hoarding multi-packs of toilet paper and sanitizer and selling it on the street marked up of course. Finally Walmart who hasn’t closed their general superstores in over 20 years decided that they would start closing their stores at 8:30 at night, in order for the overnight crew, which is the shift that I work to be able to stock product. Any establishment that was open required all customers and employees to wear face coverings, that covered their mouth and nose. We were also required to keep a social distance of 6 ft from each other as well as having our temperature checked while coming in to the store. Any temperature of 100 degrees for over automatically had to go home.to be able to really discuss what it’s like to live through this endemic we have to actually know exactly what it is from what we can gather it originated in Asia primarily China and it is contracted through saliva and touch. Symptoms are tricky because they are very similar to having a cold or having the flu obviously you have a high temperature of over a hundred, you may also have a sinus blockage or runny nose, I dry cough that that produces primarily blood and not mucus or phlegm, shortness of breath and in some cases nausea. So as you can see we had a hard time pinpointing what exactly we were looking for in this illness. In the beginning people were taking precautions and self quarantining themselves. Restaurants were closed many people were out of work and stuck at home because they had no work to go to. Some people avoided each other some people thought that it was a hoax and that it wasn’t going to happen to them. Our kids went on spring break and March and spring break lasted until the following August. With our children’s education teetering on our ability to teach them. Please let me tell you if you see a teacher today go hug them and let them know that their job is so unappreciated and selfless. Wesley and I found out really fast that we are not teacher material. Honestly Wesley has way more patience than I do but he also has been with Neva since she was a baby so he’s is more accustomed to her learning style.

As I mentioned before my job was considered a essential job as was my mother’s who works for Kroger, my stepfather Derek he works in a warehouse that makes acrylic lenses he’s a graphic designer so he was essential as well. However my sister who is a cook was laid off. She has a family, her off and on again husband, and a thirteen (fourteen now) year old daughter and nine (ten) year old daughter she has a house payment of over 1,000 dollars with of course utilities on top of them. Who this didn’t stop her from going straight to Kroger where my mom works and getting a job. She since had gone back to the restaurant when it reopened it was just fired causing her to take a full-time position at Kroger which thank the Lord above that she was able to get.

However not very many people are that fortunate a lot of people that left Walmart during the self quarantine have not come back and we are actually working at less than a skeleton crew capacity. We’re now closing at 11:00 at night opening at 7:00 in the morning except on Tuesdays when we open at 6:00 for a senior citizen day. Where now going into our very first year anniversary of this global pandemic, all of our children are remote learning. we are all spending less and less time with our extended families I haven’t seen my grandmother in almost a year.

All our emotional baggage is for the most part bottled up and just waiting for the right moment to just explode. We have learned so much about our friends, our family a lot of it not so good. But hey at least for learning the truth. Who knows what tomorrow’s going to bring, we may just come out of this better people but many more toward a crazy, maybe even horrific ending to maybe just too much closeness. We’ll see!!!