Tuesday, January 19th, 2021

It’s raining again as I head down to the supermarket. I try to get there underground. The elevator from the supermarket only goes to one other floor, Minus-2. The elevator from the office building goes there, too. I head out of the office and take the elevator to Minus-2. I go to an exit door to the parking deck itself. It’s locked. So is the other one. I see an open staircase. I take it down to Minus-3. When I get there, I realize that it’s useless for this. There’s no way up to the supermarket from there. Departing cars spiral up a corkscrew path, but there’s no space to walk along it. I get on the office elevator, take it back to the ground floor, and run outside to the supermarket. It isn’t raining too hard. I stop by the guard to get my temperature scanned. He doesn’t look up from his phone. He points. They’ve put up a scanner on a tripod mount. I scan my hand. 36.5 degrees. OK. I go inside to shop. I grab an apple and yogurt and stand in line. I look in my wallet. I don’t have a ten-shekel coin or a small bill, just a hundred and a pile of change. My purchase comes to 7.6 shekels. I count out coins, mostly half-shekel pieces, and hand them to the cashier. I’ve counted wrong. She needs another 1.4 shekels. The customer behind me asks, in a pitying tone, if she can help. No. I dig out the remaining amount and hand it to the cashier, then go back outside. I take a breath and prepare to run back through the rain.