Day #313 Writing Through COVID-19: Pangry

Today was a snow day, and tomorrow will be too. 

This morning before the storm descended, Dan and I went to town to grab groceries and get a tire on the pickup fixed. 

In the grocery store, I was standing at the meat counter when two un-masked shoppers walked up beside me, debating their order. I stepped away, feeling irritated. Almost everyone in the grocery store was wearing a mask. There were disposable masks available at the entrance to the store. 

I don't think it's possible to have missed the wear-a-mask memo, which leaves me thinking maskless shoppers are publicly flaunting their disregard for others, disbelief in science, or some me-over-you self-centeredness.
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Next, I took a seat in the empty waiting area at the tire repair shop. The television was on, and a news anchor was reporting on the 420k U.S. COVID deaths, exhorting people to maintain their diligence in preventing the spread of the virus.

In walked (another) un-masked man who joined me in the waiting area, one chair over. He called out to one of the workers in the shop, expelling his potentially COVID-breath across the waiting area. 

As a teacher these past five months, I live in hyper-awareness of where I am compared to others in an open space, who is masked (and masked correctly), what I've touched, who's sniffling.

I carry this awareness into the public sphere, where I sometimes feel like I'm using my glare as a lightsaber to keep the enemy at bay.
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Are strangers in my community the enemy? I don't want to think of my neighbors that way. Yet as I stood up and walked out of the tire-store waiting room, choosing to wait outdoors in an oncoming blizzard rather than share space (and breathable air) with someone who, like the men in Fareway, displayed an open dismissal of civility in this trying time, I'm out.

As I stood outside the building, I turned my back to the wind and thumbed through the newsfeed on my phone. An article caught my eye: Are You Pangry? it asked, giving a name to the feeling I was experiencing: anger at people ignoring the pandemic. 
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I did not confront any of the people who boiled my blood today. I couldn't think of a helpful way to do that. 

But when I found a new word to describe what I was feeling, I felt less alone. 

I'm pangry.

Enough.
Be well.
Write.

New Zealand Angel