Not All Heroes Wear Capes (?)

To say that the world at large is in dire straits is an understatement. To say that we, the people of the United States, are ill-prepared and ill-advised under poor leadership is also an understatement. It's a full-out pandemic that most (but not all) have taken seriously (super judgmental right now). Many of my friends have started working from home (the dream), and many of my friends have been laid off during this time (which is bullshit).

I work, and have worked, at a grocery store for a little over five years, and it has it’s ups and downs, like any job. I mainly kept this job because it allowed me the freedom to pursue comedy (and the health insurance-it damn near kills me to qualify for it, but then I can just go to the doctor after the fact), and unfortunately I am not able to perform live comedy at this time, so groceries it is. I am thankful for the job security, and for how the company treats their employees, and my (mostly) great coworkers, and also for the human study that I’ve been able to conduct during this pandemic.

Before the store I worked at (thankfully) limited the amount of people that could shop in at a time, it was like the wild west out there. People fighting (passive-aggressively, since we are in a “affluent” part of town, and one wouldn’t want to get their Lululemon’s all in a bunch over organic mouth wash) over general household necessities and things we rarely sell at a normal time. Honestly, the toilet paper is recycled paper, which is great, in theory, but not always in practice. I think you get what I mean. 

But people are going nuts. I tweaked my neck the first day of the pandemonium, and I still don't know if it’s from the stress of the overall situation, or from lifting six 24-packs of waters into this VERY capable Green Hill’s mom’s Range Rover that was illegally parked at Walgreens. Who’s to say?

I promise these won’t all be gripes, as I am thankful for this job (and no, not in the “I am not a hostage, I love this country” sort of way), but I am truly grateful. But I thought this could be a good place to show some perspective from "the front lines" as they call it. I am thankful to have some structure to my work day still, and my main goals right now are to 1. not have a panic attack, 2. not develop crushes on every customer that comes in (quarantine will do that to you), 3. not test out my "new material" on my unsuspecting coworkers without their consent, 4. not cry in front of customers at work when they get mad at me personally because we are out of organic black beans, and 5. not get COVID-19. In that order.