Displaced

 This is a friend’s view of the drive-through corona testing site for front-line workers here in San Francisco.

First, let me say I’m glad it’s there. Second, that’s a lot of cones. It looks like…an agility course?

“OK, so here’s the swab thing done and done. Now I’m gonna have you meet Bobby over there in the hazmat suit – I know he looks like everyone else but he’s the tall one  – and he’ll give you a bib with your number and kind of a map for how we want you to run through these cones.

Just don’t worry about your time on this one – we’re looking for accuracy more than speed this first run through. Watch out for the teeter-totter on the  turn. Lot of people trip up on that one. I know you probably have diminished lung capacity, but do your best and stay safe out there. Inhalers available at the finish line. And ambulances. For injuries. And pandemic-related symptoms.”

Not to make light of an evolving catastrophe. But that is a lot of cones for medical testing, isn’t it?

I am always annoyed by someone and can’t seem to avoid mentioning it, so I will share how irritating I find all these newly-minted quarantine home bakers and how they are buying out all my ingredients. These wanna-be-Paul-Hollywoods are everywhere – because if you didn’t share it, it didn’t happen, amirite? – with their photos of bread and some brownie their 11 year old whipped up on a Wednesday when he should’ve been doing his geometry over a dicey Google Meet connection.

I don’t begrudge anyone a new hobby in this time of having to churn your own butter or whatever, and I can log off if your humble brag cupcakes are getting on my nerves, BUT FOR CRISSAKE STOP BUYING MY YEAST.

Lemme put it this way: if you were a hiker until mid-March and then decided to make a fougasse because you couldn’t go hustle 100 miles up some hill this weekend, please note that I have not been clogging your trails just because everything is different now. Hiking is still the absolute worst. I will never willingly go on a hike. You stay in your now-six-foot-wide lane that’s always littered with roots and other nature to trip over, and I will stay in mine with my donuts.