Plague Days. Pt.4

It was more than two months since we came home from a family celebration in Toronto. It was touch and go as to whether we were going to make it, the Chinese virus was a concern, but not yet of the magnitude it was soon to assume. It was good to get together with the family, particularly as it's likely to be a long time before we can do it again. The lock-down was in effect by the time we got home and we were locked-down, confined to indoor living ever since, apart from urgent necessities such as groceries and pharmaceuticals (and an occasional visit to the liquor store!). Shops were closed apart from the above and they were rapidly depleted of essentials such as toilet paper, paper towels, and disinfectants of all kinds including bleach. Food was never scarce apart from a few of the canned goods shelves that looked a little depleted.  
We started our new routine the next morning. Panic stricken we reviewed our breakfast cereal supplies. Phew, there was a large double box of Kellogs Allbran Flakes - with two scoops of raisons! Thank God we shop at Costco. We were a little low on tea, which is serious for a tea-drinking family. Our well stocked basement food supplies were lacking little and our toilet paper and paper towel supplies had been well topped up, just before the crisis began.   Nevertheless, I got on line to the Amazon grocery division and ordered a load of non-perishables that we didn't really need.
"I don't think we will have to go out for anything until next week," I said, "Although I will have to go out for some liquor sometime soon."
The newspaper didn't have much to say about anything else besides Covid 19. Much meaningless Data taken out of context.
"Hey! It says here no need to wear masks for protection. That doesn't make sense to me!" I yelled to Irene.
That was just before Trudope gave away 16 tons of personal protective equipment to China, subsequently leaving Canadian health care providers unprotected, while our fearless leader barricaded himself in his palace to self-isolate! He appeared daily to give a fifteen minute lecture before retiring to rest. He and most of the politicians started using face masks not long after informing the public that they didn't need them. . Makes sense that even minimal protection is better than no protection at all. But you really need to be a genius to figure that out.
Soon after digesting breakfast and the depressing news in the newspaper it dawned on me that lunch was on the horizon.
"I'll make lunch," I cried out enthusiastically, even though my culinary skills are strictly limited. I managed to rustle up a couple of tuna sandwiches. We still had five cans of tuna left out of a six-pack, so I wasn't worried about starvation. This couldn't last more than a couple weeks!
The weather was cool but sunny so I went outside to the little lot behind the Condo and started my spring cleanup. Gardening was never my thing but somehow I seemed to be enjoying it now. Weather permitting I spend all the time I can outdoors on my deck.
By about day three we were getting a bit bored, hoping for something a little more exciting than Netflix or Roku and the daily monitoring that we get by our kids. Don't get me wrong, we appreciate the concern and the conversation. But we have to be careful not to worry them that we are subjecting ourselves to deadly risk running around to Loblaws to pick up up a few groceries. Masked up as we are, I think we look like a couple of geriatric bank robbers.
The excitement did come and it came in the form of a plumbing catastrophe. We were just washing up after supper, (we usually wash the dishes thoroughly before putting them in the dishwasher, its one of the rules of the kitchen, over which I have no control!),when the top of the tap snapped right off. It was no small leak and as I turned the water off, I had visions of three months, or maybe six or even a year before we could get a plumber in this era of plague. My experience in the past was that it often took a long time to get a plumber out so when my furnace / air conditioning/water heater company suggested an insurance policy, I did something I rarely do regarding that sort of insurance. I bought it. I'd used it a couple of times and they were prompt, polite and efficient but it was small stuff. Now let's see how they perform under 'lock-down'.
I phoned a 1-800 number.
"Good evening," said a pleasant voice. "How can I help you?"
I told her about my problem.
"Any leaking water right now?" she asked.
"No, I turned the water off. I know these are difficult times, but I hope you can get someone out fairly soon."
"What city are you in?" asked the voice.
My heart sunk. She's probably somewhere in India, I thought. "London, Ontario," I grunted. Wouldn't want her to send the plumber to London, England. Silence for a moment.
"Would you like the plumber to call tomorrow between eight and twelve am or between one and five pm.?"
I told her.
"He'll phone a short time before he arrives."
He did, and introduced himself. "I'm Bob the plumber." He beamed. "Tap needs replacing." he said after a brief physical examination.
We weren't surprised.  
"Normally I'd just have you have a look at the catalog and make a choice but the wholesalers are on lock-down for co-vid. I have two or three models in the van, if you'd like to have a look," he said.
We looked, we thought, we bought. An hour and a half later we had a beautiful new state of the art kitchen sink faucet. Not exactly what we might have chosen under other circumstances, but we were spared the torture of thumbing through catalogs to try to decide what would best suit our twenty-seven year old kitchen sink.
I'm looking forward to our next plumbing emergency I made sure to know how to get Bob the Plumber.
Meanwhile, life went on, a potpourri of phone calls, zooms, advice from the kids, advice to my growing virtual medical practice, a bit of scribbling here and there so that I would know what i think, going to bed later and later and getting up later and later without even having the excuse that we used to have before Netflix, Prime vision and all the other twenty four hour movie channels that "All the good movies start at midnight,"
 The days continued to roll on much as before with the coronavirus counts not looking good but recruiting fewer new cases daily. Meanwhile we continued to wash our hands mercilessly , not touch our faces, shop once a week suitably attired with masks and hand wipes to keep us safe, carefully avoiding those who didn't maintain the two meter distancing. Some didn't, pushing in to squeeze the tomatoes and anything else squeezable and many not wearing masks. Life was starting to get a little boring and I have found, over the past three-quarters of a century,that because the Gods hate a vacuum, it's never long before that space is filled.
I'll tell you about that next week!