The Shopper's Shuffle

I haven't done a lot of shopping since the corona virus appeared. I had no desire to go out and my husband took care of hunting and gathering the essentials. He can duck and weave faster than I can. But eventually I just had to go. Sometimes I thought I'd go nuts if I didn't see someplace other than the inside of my house. Other times I just wanted to see real, live, 3-D people. And there was the day I desperately wanted some root beer, but it had been so long since I'd had any that I couldn't remember which brand I preferred. I had to go myself. But shopping's a lot harder than it used to be. So much of shopping is automatic for me that it's been hard to reprogram my thinking. I'm not alone in this. For instance, while using arrows to make the aisles one-way was a good precaution, there were problems. Some of us were so intent on our shopping that we never noticed the arrows. One friend had an irate shopper point out the arrows and demand, "Don't you look at the floor when you walk?" She said, "No. I have excellent posture." Don't you love it? When I told this to another friend, she looked confused and said, "My Walmart? There are arrows on the floor of my Walmart?" One day in a large store I had to search for an item I rarely buy. I carefully went up and down the aisles the right way, then suddenly I was wrong. Did I skip an aisle without noticing? Or was there a glitch in the arrow-positioning? Then there's the Social Distancing issue. I think most people haven't thought about how far six feet actually is. It's two yardsticks. That's a really tough distance to maintain, especially now when more people are out. It can seem as though no one cares that we're jammed together. I've tried to wait for the clog to clear, but it doesn't change. New people immediately replace the ones who leave. It's been a challenge. I mentally watch my every move, shuffling along, trying to do everything right. And sometimes I'm successful. Then I get home and find I didn't get half of what was on my list.