Tuesday, April 7
When Tuesday dawned, it meant the girls’ Extended Spring Break was officially over.
Hello, First Day of Online School:
(Well, first day of official, district-run online school, anyway. The younger girls’ teachers independently tried out some informal online-school stuff during the first two weeks of “break,” while the school district was figuring out what its overall plan would be.)
Less adorably: my new laser printer!
In the evening, another essential errand, because I forgot to buy kitty litter yesterday. 😐
First stop: Target.
One of the two entrances was blocked off (quite thoroughly!), so customers could only enter through the other set of doors.
And at the other entrance, there was a whole setup for waiting in line to get in, when the store is too full under social distinancing guidelines.
There was no line Tuesday evening, though. I just stopped briefly to take that picture. 🙂
Inside the store, there were notable shortages:
And, in the checkout line, more social distancing:
Unfortunately, Target was all out of non-clumping kitty litter (which our very young foster kittens need), despite the Target app’s assurances that they had some in stock. So I checked out my other purchases (including pudding and some Easter stuff) and left for my second stop.
Well, actually, something else happened first. While I was sitting in my car, in the Target parking lot, I got a sad breaking news alert:
Here’s that video:
R.I.P., John Prine. 🙁
Anyway… back to Tuesday, and my errand run. I drove to Petsmart, but it was closed, as was almost everywhere else (it was only ~8:10, but most retail stores that haven’t been forced to shut down are closing early). So, with my kitty-litter options rapidly dwindling, I had no choice but to brave Walmart, which my phone said was closing at 8:30.
For a few moments, I thought Walmart was closed earlier than its app said (as Petsmart had been), and — huge nerd that I am — I literally thought to myself: “Walmart. The one place on Earth we don’t want to see any closer, and the one place we’re trying to get to. It’s just where we can’t get.”
😀
Thankfully, it wasn’t closed. Customers were still being allowed in through the far entrance.
I was in a hurry, so I didn’t take any pictures inside the store. But I noticed that a decent percentage of Walmart customers were wearing masks — moreso than at Target or Petsmart, I would say.
The most jarring thing, though, was the repeating loudspeaker announcement in the Walmart parking lot, accompanied by a flashing blue police light. The whole scene had an eerie, post-apocalyptic feel.
I embedded my video at the top of this post, but here it is again:
One does not simply walk into Walmart. 😉