Field Report: Day 1

Sergeant K

This is my first dispatch from the field. Spirits are a bit winded, though it is a Monday so we can only hope other days will improve.

I am currently watching “Outbreak” which is the #6 most popular thing on Netflix. I am checking in with friends who have had worse days than me. (One is at the ER trying to pass a kidney stone by urinating into a strainer while attempting not to touch anything.) I continue to wonder what I can do to help people get food; the answer appears to be nothing.

Ireland closed its pubs the day before St. Patrick’s Day.

FedEx will no longer get signatures at businesses and will instead type C.OVID into their machines. This means people will track their package and see it was signed for by COVID. I look forward to the first call in The Field where I have to reassure an irrational customer who believes their package has been infected.

A person spent $60 to ship a case of toilet paper to California for her elderly mother who has a colostomy bag. She relayed a story that a man walked out of a store with 7 packs of toilet paper even though the store clearly said “2 per customer.” When confronted, the man flashed his gun and asked if they wanted to “take this outside.”

I continue to wonder if everyone else in the world poops whenever they cough because otherwise, the toilet paper rush makes no sense.

Each customer brings a different take on the pandemic and the paranoia and the panic. It is exhausting to listen to these six-minute snippets of thought with the expectation of response. It’s like the world has become walking, breathing, talking tweets that I can’t escape.

Trivia is shut down. Baseball will not begin for months. I am reading books at a rapid pace. It is bleak.

Colonel C

She’s currently making chocolate chip cookies. Radically upset. Don’t know if she’ll hold on.