By Andrew Malekoff
In addition to everything else we have gone through this past year, we have had to wait like never before. What have we had to wait for? A year ago, it was paper goods and hand sanitizer. Now it’s appointments to get vaccinated.
As I recall, in April 2020 there were lots of empty shelves in the grocery store, especially in the aisles featuring toilet paper and water bottles. There was also a fair amount of hoarding going on. That is, until store management limited how many rolls of toilet paper and cases of water you could pile into your cart, which became something of an art form.
Years ago, when I was in my early 20s, I worked in a Grand Union warehouse in Carlstadt, NJ. My job was to unload freight cars loaded with boxes of product. After unloading the boxes, I stacked them tightly onto palettes in configurations that would allow the forklift driver to transport the product to their designated areas in the warehouse without the contents tipping over, which was especially messy when it involved liquid like dish detergent or evaporated milk.
What I observed one year ago was that a few pandemic shoppers developed a Rubik’s Cube-like skill in packing obscene amounts of toilet paper and cases of water into their shopping carts. This was especially so in some of the bulk retail stores like Costco, BJ’s or Sam’s Club. It was a sight to behold – a survivalist’s delight, no doubt.
As for hand sanitizer, I could never find the name brand that we are all most familiar with – Purell. Only knock-offs in similarly shaped and colored packaging. But it was never the same. I bought one that contained a liquid of much thinner consistency that rocketed out of the dispenser onto my shirt and pants. Others were sticky to the touch. And, still others emitted fumes so strong that I was left feeling woozy.
Those were the early days of waiting. Of course, not everything that we had to wait for was a disposable item that we can now look back on and have a good laugh about.
Parents and kids waited for schools to re-open. Employers and employees who could not work virtually waited for businesses to reopen. I have two sons. One is a tattoo artist and the other works in the restaurant business. It took about three to four months post- shutdown for the tattoo shop to get New York State authorization to reopen, while restaurants are still struggling. Consequently, my other son is still waiting to find a job.
Perhaps the worst waiting of all, even worse than waiting to get back to work, was the life and death waiting – the agonizing waiting of family members to see their ailing loved ones who were confined to hospitals or nursing homes, with strict rules prohibiting visitors. Tragically, for so many, that waiting turned into grieving.
Months passed and we waited for vaccines to be developed and approved. They became available in record time. Then we waited to get appointments to be vaccinated. We spent frustrating hours, days and weeks on the phone and internet trying to secure appointments.
There is no shortage of tips about how to cope with waiting. The advice includes employing breathing and muscle relaxing exercises, listening to music and maintaining a sense of humor.
Naturally, all of these suggestions are better than blowing a gasket and ending up with a heart attack or stroke.
New Yorkers are used to waiting in traffic and have had lots of opportunities to practice coping with frustration and maintaining self-control as an alternative to getting stressed out, weaving in and out of traffic and erupting into episodes of road rage.
I’m sure I’ve missed a few of the waiting experiences that we’ve all encountered in the last year. For me, though, I think most frustrating of all has been waiting for Americans to come together as a people to get through this health disaster with locked arms, as we did so wonderfully before World War II and after 9/11.
Most depressing of all, when all is said and done with COVID-19, is knowing that coming together and healing a deeply divided nation will be the longest and most perilous wait of all.
