Is it Wrong to Say I Like Some Things About the Pandemic?

Maybe we should retain a few of our new habits

The virus is terrible. Every day I pray for a vaccine and for treatments to stem the tide of sickness. But despite my hatred of coronavirus, I have come to like some things about the pandemic.

Our neighborhood swimming pool is one example. It’s open, but because of covid-19, we now need a reservation.

At first, I thought this would be a terrible imposition. Who wants to make a reservation to go to the swimming pool when you’ve paid your membership dues? But I wanted to take the grandkids, who had been cooped up and sheltering in place for months, so I went ahead and reserved a spot.

When we got to the pool, a teenage girl working the reception window said, “You’re assigned to Section One by the water slide.”

The pool wasn’t overly crowded, and the four lounge chairs I had requested were positioned under an umbrella by the water slide with an expansive view of the kid’s wading pool. Other chairs were similarly grouped, each one with an umbrella for shade if you didn’t want to bask in the sun, and a section number.

I thought about how the pool used to be before the pandemic. We would arrive to find most of the chairs empty but already claimed, beach towels staking out territory. Sometimes nobody ever returned to the chairs, but those of us who didn’t get to the pool in time to claim our own spot didn’t have a place to sit.

Another thing about having a section reserved was the cleanliness. Before this new reservation system, a lot of empty chairs were left with bits of food and sticky spilled cokes, along with swarms of ants. Now we didn’t need to brush off food and ants before we could sit.

“I hope they keep requiring reservations after the coronavirus epidemic is over,” I told my partner, who had already claimed his chair and was lounging comfortably in the sun while the kids scampered off to swim.

There are other changes I’ve also grown to like. One is wearing masks in the grocery store, the mall and other indoor places where people congregate. Think of how much it might help decrease flu and other illnesses along with covid-19 if everyone wore masks.

Another thing about covering my face is I don’t have to smile all the time. I smile a lot and I’m friendly, but I don’t enjoy going around with a big, fake grin plastered to my face. If you live in the South and aren’t smiling, someone (usually a man) will inevitably say, “Smile! You’ll look a lot prettier!” This never fails to annoy me, since it’s nobody’s business whether I’m smiling or not. I might be deep in thought about some serious issue, and a stranger telling me I’d be prettier if I smiled is aggravating, to say the least.

My daughter-in-law says she likes masks and social distancing because men aren’t always touching her. They don’t place their hands on her shoulders while pretending to scoot past her in the grocery store aisle. They don’t brush up against her when she’s in the checkout line at Target. They stand on their red X and she stands on hers.

Some other positives about quarantining are the decreased traffic, the cleaner air, and the slower pace, although traffic has started to ramp up again and everybody seems to want to schedule a Zoom conference.

I’ll be glad when covid-19 is behind us, and it worries me that cases are starting to tick upward in places that have reopened. But at some point there will be a vaccine or some effective treatments, or maybe the virus will simply become less virulent. Wouldn’t that be great!

But even after we develop treatments or preventatives, I hope we retain some habits we’ve acquired during the pandemic. I say keep the masks, the clean air and the slower pace. We might be healthier and happier for it.