Wednesday, March 18, 2020

A barrier of caution tape surrounds my office building’s security desk. The guard is wearing a mask. So are half the people in the supermarket on the ground floor. The masks are getting fancier. Some are more shaped and textured than the simple coverings I saw a few days ago. Some have multiple colors, mostly black and red, and scientific looking outcroppings and doodads. The store is only a little more crowded than usual. I can get down all the aisles easily, except for the one with paper goods. They’ve overstocked on toilet paper, prepared for a panic that hasn’t happened yet. Some of it is on sale. A few people in the cashiers’ lines have packages of it, but I don’t know if there are more than usual. I’d never thought to notice how much toilet paper other people were buying before. Someone sends me a message about a protest happening tomorrow. Unfortunately, the person in the video is speaking really quickly, and the text is a graphic that I can’t drop into a translation program. I’m usually up for a good protest. But it helps to know what they’re protesting against.