He's Coming, He's Coming, He's Coming

For me, the biggest crater in my personal cultural landscape caused by the (ongoing) 2020 disaster movie is that I don’t engage with strangers in public the way I did prior to masks. Some friends—who found this practice annoying—might be glad to hear of the change. Others—who gained inspiration from it—might find it sad, as I do. After one friend and I took a road trip together, he put “talk to at least one stranger,” on his daily practice list. Years later, he claimed the activity made him more confident, better at his job, and he stopped watching porn. Not sure how that all worked out, but I’ll take the win.

The other thing that killed my stranger chat habit was forced distancing, luckily a short-lived practice. I saw this remnant on the sidewalk at Trader Joe’s in Palm Springs the other day. It felt nostalgic, like a message from a bygone era, slowly fading into history. (It must have just been cheap paint, because it’s only two years old.) Still, I was struck by its anachronism, and yes, commented on it to nearby strangers: two 70-something women, trying to jerk a shopping cart free from the always-stuck cart train.

“Oh yes, I remember standing on those lines, haha,” one of them said, like it was the dumbest thing in the world. “Remember how they closed down all but one entrance to Home Depot?” We all laughed.

Then I noticed they were both wearing black KN95 face masks. We were outside, where it was one hundred and four degrees. It was the fact that the masks were black that struck me first (see last week’s albedo experiment), followed by the fact they were masked at all. See, where I live—up the hill from Palm Springs—masks are mostly just ugly bits of trash blowing around the parking lot now, or embedded in gooey asphalt, stamped with truck tire patterns. Sometimes I see a fancy one like animal print or sequins and wonder about the former wearer. But in stores, very few people are masked, currently.

Upon entering the delightfully air conditioned store, I found that I was one of maybe three unmasked people. When I asked a crew member (Ahoy, Matey!) about it, she said word came down from corporate on Monday that employees are back to mandatory masks “to make customers feel safe,” because of a “surge” in “cases.” At least I think that’s what she said, her ill-fitting cloth mask made it hard to understand her with the boomer-friendly music Trader Joe’s is so fond of blaring in the background.

This crew member assured me that she’s fine with wearing a mask and also fine that others aren’t. This seems like a reasonable arrangement to me. Since every mask-effectiveness study I’ve seen puts the “no mask” danger zone at around 15 minutes, I guess I’ll continue with the speed-shopping method that has served me well thus far.

The loser in this return-to-face-coverings equation, of course, is human connection. It’s a huge loss. You never know where a random question asked aloud in the middle of the spice aisle like, “Now, why aren’t we supposed to eat pink Himalayan salt again?” may lead.

In thinking about random connections with strangers, yesterday I remembered a favorite: it happened at a Target store in Missoula, Montana in probably 2013. I was walking south along the wide boulevard that stretches across the back of the store from baby furniture to bar stools—small appliances on your right—past electronics and finally to camping gear and sporting goods. Three college kids were headed my way. I assumed they were students because Missoula is a college town and these three adorable misfits did not seem like they’d grown up in “The Last Best Place,” Missoula’s humble nickname for itself. One boy was very fem and fabulous, the most fashionable person in a five mile radius. The girl was chubby and had home-dyed pink and purple hair. The second boy was skinny and probably had the highest SAT scores of anyone in his high school.

I spotted them because they were reciting something and doing a choreographed in-unison walk—like Dorothy and friends when they’re off to see the Wizard—except it was just three giant steps, then they’d crack up and lose it. When they got closer, I heard their in-unison hushed tones: “He’s coming! He’s coming! He’s coming!”

As we passed each other, they pulled themselves together in that way we used to call “maintaining” when I was a card carrying member of the Get Stoned for Lunch Bunch. I looked the fabulous boy in the eye and—without changing my facial expression—said in a weird high voice, “He’ll save children, but not the British children,” and kept walking with my little red plastic basket full of crap.

They stopped walking. Long pause… then… all at once:

“Did you hear that?”

“Wait, WHAT???”

“Oh my fucking gawwwwwwwd.”

What followed was the sound of squeals and flip flops smacking linoleum as the three of them ran after me. They almost tackled me to the ground, they were hugging me so hard.

This is the video they were singing. It’s an oldie but a weirdie. Trigger warning if you love George Washington or hate animated gore. Also might not be appropriate for children, though I think it was a child who first shared it with me.