WARNING: NC is Alerting You to Stay Home

Historically I try and not visit a grocery store this week as I usually find them full of amateurs. You know, the husbands who have been sent to the store to pick up one strange ingredient they have no idea where to find, let alone what it even looks like. Or the newly home from college student who wanders the aisles with all the time in the world blocking power shoppers like me from sprinting through our shopping. Or the mother with her children out of school in tow just trying to keep superfluous items out of her cart.

Since I am not cooking for Thanksgiving I did not do my big Turkey shopping last week and have not been cooking one item each day for the last week. Russ and I are getting our Thanksgiving from Sage and Swift. This is first time in our marriage that I have not cooked anything, except for may be our first Thanksgiving when we went to his parents for Turkey day. Given what we were served I think I had to cook after the Turkey meal when I got home so we could have something good to eat.

As I did not shop last week I realized that I needed to buy a few fruits and vegetable today to carry us through the holiday. I broke down and went to Trader Joe’s this morning. Thankfully with the vetting of the number of customers allowed in the store at the same time it did not matter if there were too many armatures, except for the one woman who kept wandering the store with her cart going against the stream of shoppers.

As I was standing by the bananas both my watch and phone started blaring a terrible warning sound. I heard the same sound coming from every phone on every person in the store. I looked at my watch and saw the words “Public Safety Alert.” I was worried something like a plane crash had happened. I put on my glasses so I could see the text.

Covid 19 warning was what everyone had received all at once. It was the very first alert of its kind I had gotten. I was worried that it was alerting me that someone in the store had Covid. Thankfully it was not. I finished my shopping and heeded the warning and went home.

Then I got the same warning again late this afternoon. North Carolina is serious about us trying to reduce our Covid numbers. I hope that people listen. Don’t send any armatures to the store. If your normal Thanksgiving provision gathering happens by going back to the store a dozen times in two days, try and make a list an only go once. If you have a college student home, ask them what they want to eat and buy all their favorite foods for them when you do your shopping and if you are a mother with little kids, ask someone else to pick up your groceries so you don’t have to drag extra little people to the store.

Even better, order take out for your Thanksgiving. You can pick it up tomorrow and not have to go to the store at all.