Tuesday, April 28, 2020

The Corona Virus hits the Exurbs

Today marks day 47 hundred thousand of the Covid-19/Corona virus quarantine. Our little family has fared quite well in spite of all of the madness around us, and I wanted to post something here to help remember our own personal memories of the pandemic.

But I'm only adding the funny things.

1) When the announcement was made that the state of Maryland was shutting down for quarantine, there was (of course) panic buying everywhere. On the VERY LAST DAY before we were not allowed outside anymore, Hambone and I BOTH went panic buying, unaware that the other was also shopping. Our combined quarry included these hilarious items:
  • 5 gallons of milk
  • 15 boxes of cereal
  • 1 can of whipped cream (I bought this)
  • 5 boxes of Reses' peanut butter chocolate Easter eggs (Hambone bought this)
  • 8 lbs of potatoes
  • 4 racks of ribs
  • 1 brisket that weighed a whopping 18 lbs. Hambone explained that the only meat left in Sam's Club was this big brisket and raw shrimp. Of course he went with beef. 
2) The night before quarantine began, Hamslice left the doors to the chicken coop open and five of our chickens were killed by foxes.

3) On our second week of quarantine, we were drinking the milk that we had frozen from that initial shopping trip, and we had our usual delivery of fresh vegetables from Hungry Harvest (a company that delivers food that grocery stores won't sell because it doesn't match up with their standards). We usually get a nice variety of vegetables from this company but THIS TIME our delivery consisted of SEVEN HEADS OF BOK CHOY, two potatoes and four cartons of lettuce. I diligently cooked and served ALL seven heads in a variety of soups and stews. The boys WILL NOT STOP TALKING about how gross BOK CHOY is.

4) In the third week of quarantine, food shortages of eggs started hitting the grocery stores, and everyone we know started buying eggs from us.  What dawned on us soon after the sales spiked, is that our egg customers were using an "egg run from the T's" as a family outing -- they brought vegetable scraps for the goats, and each egg pickup would take about 20 minutes with all of the visiting with animals. We were, of course, not welcome to join them because of the social distancing measures, so we watched all of our friends pet the goats through the windows, sighing wistfully for brighter days. However we are very happy to share our animals with our *very bored* friends and neighbors.

5) Easter was a super crunch for egg production. We suspect that some of the dozens we sold were colored and hid in peoples' yards for their kids to find. Again we helped to entertain the neighborhood. =)

6) As our little family grows more suspicious of grocery stores, we have started trading eggs for other food staples. One of our friends is "friends with a gardener" who trades fresh onions and veggies from her garden for a dozen eggs. At this point, a dozen eggs is evenly traded for two onions and a handful of potatoes. These friends also leave a couple of bucks for the kids, but we all really look forward to the fresh veggies more than the money.

7) Our kids have started using the bank. As their opportunities for spending their egg and chore money dry up, they have started handing over all of their money to me to put in the bank. Their reasoning is that having money lying around the house is just an opportunity for theft from each other, and in case the house would be broken into. I can't argue with that logic. They also have asked for their savings accounts to be transferred into stock market purchases. I am not making this up, people.

8) The weekend before the virus closures happened, I went out for a manicure and got a "dip nail" which is basically powder-coated fingernails.  This color Would Not Come Off and as it grew out and out, it became pretty atrocious. Finally Hambone came to me with a can of acetone and said simply "It's time."

So with all of these funny things happening, you can see why I wanted to write this all down. More to come, I am sure, so stay tuned. As the governor says, "We're not out of the woods yet!"