Wednesday, August 26th, 2020

A man with a pizza walks up the hallway during afternoon prayers. He comes up to the front just as the boss blows the shofar, less than a meter from his ears. He stumbles and almost falls over. He doesn’t drop the pizza. I don’t worry whether he might bang his head. He is still wearing his motorcycle helmet. When I head down to the supermarket a little while later, I see a woman standing nervously by the elevator panel. I press the down button. She asks me if I am going to the ground floor. I am. I expect that she will choose to stay behind. She might be unwilling to be in an elevator with a strange man. Even though we're both wearing masks, she might be wary of being in an elevator with another person at all. I prepare to offer to let her ride first, since she was there before me. That’s not what’s happening, though. I finally figure out that she is terrified of elevators. She doesn’t want to ride in one alone. She's been waiting for someone, anyone, to be heading to the lobby. When the elevator arrives, I get in and welcome her to ride along. We get to the ground floor without any other stops. She thanks me profusely when we get off. I head to the supermarket. She heads to the cafe.