Pandemic, PJP Style
One of my very least favorite toys when I was a kid was a Jack-In-The-Box. I never cared for cranking the handle, the creepy music, or the anxiety when the super skeevy clown face popped up out of the box. And you know what? A pandemic feels EXACTLY LIKE A JACK-IN-THE-BOX EXPERIENCE. (The scary toy kind, not the fast food kind.) At any rate, I feel like the non-stop news feed is the scary music and I’m just waiting for something to pop out and get me…though I’m not sure what exactly. I’m not really afraid of getting the Coronavirus, but I am afraid of the virus’ impact on PJP and well, actually business in general.
I’m stressing about it all non-stop, so much so that my left eye twitches on the lower lid. And I don’t care for that at all. Oh, and nothing feels normal in this town - or in this world - as we deal with a pandemic. And I don’t care for that at all either.
So let’s talk about PJP in the area of pandemic:
We remain open every day with regular hours. And we have been busy, thankfully. Every morning I’m convinced this might be the day where we make about $11 in gross sales, but so far we are hanging in there well.
We are down a significant number of employees. At last count, five members of Team PJP have decided they do not want to interact with the public for their own safety. The rest of us have been working long hours together, with several of us staying from open to close each day.
I guess we will just keep going this way until the city or the state or the president tells us we can’t. Which makes me wonder…how do we know when we have to close? Do we get a phone call with a grainy voice telling us to cease operations? A registered letter? A Facebook message? I can really get caught in the minutiae on these sorts of things because I can easily creep myself out and I don’t want a grainy recorded phone call from anyone. Ever. About anything.
And speaking of who tells us we must cease operations, I wonder who declares this all over? Like, when can we go back to our normal lives sort of over? I’m here for the continued practice of washing our hands a lot and wiping down our grocery carts with sanitizer, but I’m ready to go back to a regular life that includes people interactions in groups larger of 10. The government should look into singing telegrams for that announcement. Or large stimulus checks…that works too.
And finally, in heartbreaking news, PJP’s favorite Starbucks is closed. I even drove to the one on Fairview and Broadway on Saturday to find it also closed due to “COVID-19 complications.” So, I haven’t had Cold Brew since Friday and my head has hurt in hum with my eyelid tic. The government can just keep my check and send me a Starbucks gift card. Seriously.
