Grocery shopping in the time of COVID-19

I watched this video a few days ago from a doctor about sanitizing your groceries before putting them away.

I already was treating my Amazon and other deliveries as biohazards after learning the virus can live on cardboard for a day or whatever. Those came into the house and sat by the front door for at least a day or were immediately unboxed and box disposed of – both followed by the now-requisite 20 second intensive hand-washing.

Since my husband has to work outside the house, when he comes home, I have him immediately wash his hands and change his clothes. Also at least once a day, I go through the house and disinfect all of the “high touch” areas (light switches, door knobs, phones, keyboards, cabinet handles, etc). Yes, yes…I may be taking things a little too seriously. I know.

So it’s not like I really needed yet another thing to semi-obsessively clean these days. But then I watched that video.

My husband went shopping Sunday for only the second time since things took a serious turn here with the COVID-19 pandemic and there I was when he got home, directing grocery unloading into the “contaminated zone” in the kitchen. I put on a pair of gloves and set about disinfecting (or disposing of) boxes and bags and wiping down jars, and cans, then moving them to the “uncontaminated zone” so my daughter could put away our COVID-free goods. I filled the sink with warm soapy water and scrubbed down the produce.

And while I was doing this, it struck me that I feel like I’m living the plot of some dystopian novel. I would never in my life ever have thought I would be wearing gloves and sanitizing my groceries, but here we are. It’s rather surreal, this whole thing, including how normal all of the COVID-related changes are starting to feel.