By John Murphy
Woke up Saturday and didn’t even know it was Saturday until the CalTrans Girl mentioned it. The quarantine will do that to you.
After a week of this “Shelter at Home” jazz, we decided to hop in the Corolla and head south on the 210. Destination Riverside.
I had a memento for a friend I wanted to drop off. Twenty minutes later we arrived at his quiet ranch house built on what used to be an orange grove.
I knocked on the door and my bud bounded out as his wife reminded him to maintain “six feet.” Doh! Here I was pulling a drop-in during a global pandemic. I felt stupid.
Let’s review the stats: Thirty-six people have died from the coronavirus in California since March 4, including 18 in Riverside County and 13 in San Bernardino County. More than 1,000 people combined in the two counties have tested positive for COVID-19. That’s a lot.
Dire as that sounds (and it is) it was Saturday, we had been cooped up all week and we needed a break. So we left Riverside and headed west on the 60 headed for Rancho Cucamonga.
She wanted to stop at 85 Degrees, a Taiwanese coffee house/bakery. But first we pulled into Office Depot and I was handed a mask for the occasion. I looked like I was about to rob a Circle K.
“Welcome to Office Depot,” a masked woman from behind the counter said.
I’ve been buying a lot more office supplies lately since I now have my own business. So I picked out a 100-pack of envelopes, then headed for the register.
That’s when I noticed the six-foot-boxes outlined in blue tape on the ground. I felt like George Costanza in the “Soup Nazi” episode of Seinfeld as I slowly advanced toward the register. What a strange world we now occupy.
But consider the alternative. With more than 13,000 Californians infected since January and with death a possibility, we can all stand to don a mask, wander less and think a lot more. I plan to.
Main Street Dog 