Looked
longingly at five toilet rolls, three on the bottom, two on top in the bathroom
at a café the other day.
Had a back pack with me. It would have been so easy to steal just one. No one
would have known. It would have bought me toilet paper time.
Happy to tell
you that my morality kicked in. I left, hands well-soaped and dried but not
thieving. Self-consciously, I used the edge of my shirt to unlock and open the
bathroom door. Felt irrationally proud of my antiseptic fastidiousness, despite
having always bordered on OCD with hand-washing and hygiene. Then I realised
that had there been any Covid-19 invisibly lurking amongst my fellow
Francophones at the café table – no offence to any of my delightful
group - I would have already contracted it. See, we were all handling the
communal water bottle, as was the waitress. And before I’d gone to the bathroom, I’d had a handful of sultanas from a little supply I carry around with me – bit of carb sustenance for this
diabetic cyclist. Despite my best intentions, I’d forgotten to use hand sanitiser. Fark.
Quite easy
to spread this pandemic, eh?
Being
retired, I made the relatively easy decision to self-isolate, four days ahead
of the state government’s declaring a
State of Emergency as it turned out.
Still
plenty of fruit and veg in the shops, if like me you shop small, and in a pinch
I can be quite creative with legumes. Pfft to pasta and rice. Too many carbs
for me. We’ll be right, potential
imminent death notwithstanding.
It pained
me a bit initially to miss out on my beloved German lessons, French
conversation groups and choir rehearsals. Had a brief adrenaline fuelled sulk and then, something weird happened.
I felt pleasantly
free, and not only from my packed post-retirement program.
My frugal
zero waste tight-arse mentality has me pandemic primed. The lidded ‘nappy bucket’ is in situ in the laundry sink. An
old towel has been cut into squares, now neatly hemmed. A repurposed squeezy detergent
bottle is an excellent ‘portable bidet’.
Poor fools
lining up for toilet paper. Having experienced a new cottony softness on my
nether regions, I doubt I’ll return to my
former wasteful habits. And don’t get me
started on the squirty bottle.
