The Safeway store I usually go to has instituted “senior hours” from 7:00 – 9:00 AM Tuesdays and Thursdays, which is certainly more convenient than the 5:00 – 6:00 AM hours some of the other grocery stores have put in place. Since I was unable to find any meat on Monday I decided I’d try Safeway this morning. I got there at about 6:50 AM; only one of its two doors was open (they were monitoring how many people came in, I was told). There wasn’t any hamburger immediately available, but I saw one of the butchers who told me he was grinding it as we spoke. I hung around for five minutes and got 4 packages (I could have gotten more, but I’m not gonna cook anything with ground beef more than once between now and next Tuesday when I’ll have another chance to shop there).

I also got some frozen pizzas, some taquitos (forgot the prepared guacamole, dammit!), some frozen TV dinners, some fruit and some cookies. There were few paper goods available at Safeway: no wipes, no TP, no paper towels. There were some packages of napkins which were on my list. The store was also out of Tylenol, bar soap and hand-soap refills.

The store had taken some precautions: there are now big plexiglass shields between the cashier and the customer, maybe 2 feet by 3 feet. They have also decided customers should bag their own purchases, presumably on the theory that any bagger might have the virus. Now, the cashier has to handle each package and scan it, so I’m not sure the logic is consistent, but whatever. It took me right back to the summer of 1968 when we lived on Guam and I bagged groceries at the Navy Commissary before I left for college in the fall.

I imagine I’ll be back next Tuesday to see if the paper supply has been replenished.