COVID TIMES: "Senior mixer at the supermarket"

 

--Ard Su/newyorker

 

"Who wanted to share the banalities of this life right now: the low buzz of dread in the head like a broken wire; the endless YouTube links; everyone frantically not socializing; the recently furloughed male friends doing their insane air-guitar concerts on Zoom; the hours of television news interspersed with highly theatrical, mind-boggling insurance ads; the early-morning senior mixer at the supermarket; the neighborhood walks with face masks hanging from one ear like dream catchers..." --Face Time/Lorrie Moore

                                                                * * *

I  have avoided the "early morning senior mixer at the supermarket." But the rest is all too familiar.

Nothing I've seen lately sticks in my mind as has a tale I've just re-read in a late September issue of the New Yorker.

"Face Time" by Lorrie Moore is a short story: a woman talking to her dying father in a hospital ... on iPads. She has sisters. And a sense of humour.

It's not quite the downer it sounds: one line about France--"which invented pasteurization and has been dining out on that ever since, while still serving small, moldy raw-milk cheeses" made me laugh out loud.

But if your dreams have been stalked this year by some loved one, beyond your reach or aid in a  medical lockdown nightmare, you'll be moved.

And it seems to be online ...

LINK: Face Time by Lorrie Moore