Take something as relatively simple as going to the grocery store. In times past (last year) if you needed something you swung in when you were in the area, picked it up and came home. Pretty simple.
Not anymore.
Other things we consider these days:
- Do I really need this?
- Should I do this as an online order or go in person?
- Will they have the product in stock?
- When should I go to have the least contact with others?
- Will other patrons be wearing masks?
- Where can I shop that they really care about my safety?
These are the thoughts just about shopping for groceries.
Admittedly, some of these were in the back of our minds historically, but have really come to the forefront. Now think about going out to dinner. We probably averaged a couple of times a week prior to March 2020. It was often a last minute decision when nobody wanted to cook. Sometimes we chose to go to to a "drive-through" and bring food home, which we still do, but often we chose to eat at a restaurant. Since March, that option has been a "hard no". The places we frequented for years in the Des Moines area haven't seen us for seven or eight months. And, as I said at the beginning of this, it has added extra steps to everything around this.
With all of this there are trade-offs, just like what happens with almost everything in life.
Let's take cooking. I'm not sure about you, but when the pandemic started, I thought of myself two ways where cooking was concerned. First, I thought I was okay at it. I could find my way around the kitchen and it had been a few years since I absolutely destroyed anything while cooking. The second thing I thought about my ability to cook regarded what I was willing to try. I had a certain number of things I would cook and could accomplish regularly. That was the sum total of my cooking repertoire.
Enter 2020 and the pandemic. I would have gotten WAY sick of the things I regularly cooked. You can only have breakfast for dinner so many times. But 2020 forced us to do things differently. We cook more at home, or eat peanut butter sandwiches. One thing I am truly thankful for in all of this is the companies who came to market with recipes and meal ingredients shipped directly to our homes - companies like Home Chef and Blue Apron. We just celebrated four years with Home Chef on August 28th. We skipped a few weeks, but in round numbers, they've shipped over twelve hundred dinner servings into our home. This explains why every time I go to look for a box to use for anything, there are a few Home Chef boxes around the house and at the Toybox. It's helped me to learn to be a better cook and has caused me to stretch my palate as to flavors and items I like. Without question, I will never like the taste of truffles or truffle oil. It tastes like dirt to me. Anyway, with the extra steps required around meals and cooking, I am thankful someone stepped in to help me.
The final thing I need to talk about in the light of adding extra steps has been around the supply chain this year. I have friends in virtually every part of the business world. Anyone who has a physical product needing to be sourced, at one time or another there's been a disruption. One friend waited months for dishwashers and other appliances he used to be able to get in three days. My work has a vendor who has historically been able to provide full loads of product in 3-5 days. Now, their loads dribble in a little at a time over multiple weeks.
Each of us has to think about the way things work. At the beginning of the pandemic, when toilet paper was almost impossible to get, one thing I thought about was the reality of household and institutional toilet paper being produced in a specific ratio to each other. Suddenly, the institutional side wasn't being hit as hard as residential. I did a little research, and found that I could purchase large institutional rolls with no problem. If we are ever able to visit each other's homes again, don't be surprised by the toilet paper in our bathroom.
I would also bet that when bacon was hard to find, you'd have gone to a meat distributor, and had no trouble buying a thirty pound purveyor's box of bacon. It would have just taken an extra step or two.
2020 has been about taking the extra steps, and it has made us all weary, in one way or another.
I hope you find a way to relax and unwind over this long weekend at the end of our summer. Relax and take care of yourself and those close to you. It is the right thing to do. Take care.
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