Out and About

"I was beginning to get worried about you," said my wife as I walked back into the house. It was a Friday morning and there was nothing much happening in my office. I had told her my plan was to run out to get one thing from the store and then come right back. But when I didn't return for four hours, she began to wonder. After all the usual distractions were not in play, like stopping off to visit a friend or going shopping: in our quarantined world, that's just not done. And so the most likely possibilities were I had a flat tire, an accident or in her mind most likely, been kidnapped by aliens. 

After all, like most of you, I have been homebound for much of the last year. Save the grocery store, my expeditions have been few and far between. There have been a couple of trips to collect then redeposit children, a swing past a rotating series of local establishments to pick up a takeout order, the occasional run to get supplies to fix something broken in the house or my body. Every trip had a very specific pattern: start here, go there and then return, spending as little extra time beyond our four walls as possible. If Newton's first three laws of motion were inertia, force and action/reaction, this was the fourth: conservation of movement.

The kind of trip that used to be generically described as "errands" was a non-starter. You remember those: a random series of stops at disparate establishments with you being the only connection. The exact ingredients varied on any day, but it might include the dry cleaner or the bakery, a gift shop or the post office. The route was a variation on the classic traveling salesman's problem: given a list of cities and the distances between each, what is the shortest possible route that visits each exactly once before returning to the origin? UPS drivers follow highly tweaked algorithms that tell them where to go and when. Their route is more efficient, mine more scenic.

In this case I needed a single part from the hardware store to complete a project. But faster than you can recall the names of all the vaccines now making the rounds, the ground is shifting once again under our very feet, and as Peter Allen sang, everything old is new again. And so with both shots under my arm and a mask in my pocket, I realized that "shopping" had once again become a possibility.

On the way over I recalled that I needed new walking shoes. I was tired of having pairs delivered to our house that I needed to return because they didn't fit right. And so I detoured to a big box store to try some on. Yes, I covered my face and a stayed 6' away for everyone, but I strolled around looking at merchandise and tried on some I hadn't seen online. I found a pair I liked, paid for it and headed out to my car.

As I walked through the parking lot I noticed across the way a large discount liquor store. Remembering we were in need of some wine I headed in. But again, rather than just grabbing the bottle required, I loitered a bit looking at some new vintages and (gasp!) even chatted with the salesman about his favorites. We discussed a few, and I wound up buying a product different from my usual, all because of a serendipitous encounter by the sauvignon blanc.

The hardware store was no different. Rather than hold my breath and dash in and out, I paused by the display of sliding glass doors, and asked a few questions about replacement models. Similarly, I ambled to the garden center and posed a few queries about mulch. Then a leisurely stroll down the tile aisle looking at options and possibilities. I emerged with multiple items and tossed them all in the car along with the shoes and the wine.

So yes, I got home hours after my departure, toting a little of this and a bit of that. But while I regret worrying my spouse, I felt like I had been to the promised land. It might not have been the Grand Bazaar of Istanbul, but it almost felt like being on holiday again.

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Marc Wollin of Bedford is starting to venture out and about. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.