I just returned from the grocery store.
Produce department: As I picked up the third avocado to see if it was ripe enough, I realized there were four other people doing the same thing. I saw someone rooting through a pile of fresh peaches looking for unblemished ones.
Meat department: A lady ran her hand through her hair, then began handling different packs of chicken to read the dates on the labels.
Beer aisle: Two small children were playing around, touching each pack of beer according to what color they had chosen to target. Parents were busy looking at labels.
Check-out line: The cashier could not scan the produce code through the plastic bag, so she opened the bag and scanned it that way. I almost said something, then remembered that the produce had been handled by who knows how many people before I put it in that plastic bag to take home.
Parking lot: I put my stuff in the car, wiped my nose, pushed up my glasses, then returned the cart to the front of the store. As I walked away I realized what I had just done.
I got into the car, pulled out my smartphone to check for responses to the cute kitten pics I had posted earlier, then realized I just contaminated the phone as well as the keys and steering wheel and door handle.
How many germs, viruses, and crud did I just exchange with other people's germs, viruses, and crud just by going on a grocery run?
As I sit here, I just heard the neighbor's child rattle my door knob. She is new to the building and has not learned which apartment door is hers yet. Will I remember to go clean that? Doubtful. I am busy GLPing.
This is normalcy bias at work.
Quoting: Gemini Rising Gemini Rising, thank you very, very much for this amazingly honest "diary" of a shopping trip. This is exactly what each of us is doing because nothing has changed, right?
Life will always go on exactly as it has always gone on. It is so very difficult for us to see differently, think differently, behave differently, yet the world has totally changed in complexity for each of us in our every little corner of the world.
This precisely is, as Gemini says, normalcy bias at work. Perfect description. What are we to do about it? How are we to think differently, behave differently, take different precautions?
Wouldn't it be wonderful to have each person who generally reads and posts here comment on Gemini's "diary" and relate it to their own lives? I hope you each will.
I will only add to this wonderful, wonderful commentary that I cannot count how many times I have reminded myself that I need to disinfect my front door knob. Have I done so? You know the answer. Perhaps today I finally will, thanks to our dear Gemini Rising.
