September 18, 2020
Dear Everyone:
Murphy’s Law:
“If it says, ‘One Size Fits All’, that means it doesn’t fit
anybody.”
Too true.
Take the omnipresent face masks, for example.
Some are too small for anyone; others are too large for most.
I found a Quick Fix for Too Large:
Fold the edges in a small pleat at each end and use a stapler to
fasten the pleats. It’s
temporary, but so are the masks.
When they were hard to obtain, these masks were
reused as many times as possible.
Now I can find a bagful on my way to the pharmacy counter for a
very reasonable price. So,
if one falls to the ground on its way back into my purse, it’s not
exactly the End of The World.
“Plastic” gloves are also an issue.
When this whole Self-Isolation thing started about six months
ago, I had a box of gloves that I use for cleaning, mostly.
These gloves, and cleaning supplies in general, disappeared from
store shelves for a while.
But I had enough to see me through.
More or less.
I always wear gloves when shopping.
Sure, the store pays one of its (“essential”) workers to spray
and wipe the shopping cart handles; but you never really know if that’s
enough. Just as you never
know who last touched that box or package on the shelf.
Nor do you know how many people have touched that keypad when you
use your bank card to pay for groceries.
Better safe than sorry, right?
Only trouble is, which key is my finger
pressing? It’s hard to tell
when the glove is a half-inch, or more, longer than the finger.
Face it: I have small
hands. Tiny fingers.
Folding the extra plastic back, while trying to press in the
correct PIN, is not terribly easy.
Can’t use staples here.
So, there I was, a few months ago, sitting in
Exam Room X at the cardiologist’s office, for a follow-up on the new
gizmo in my chest; and I’m looking at the rack of plastic gloves on the
wall. The rack held boxes of
gloves in three sizes:
Large, Medium, Small.
Seriously, three different sizes, including
“Small”. And I started
wondering: How many pairs of
these gloves, in the Small size, do you suppose they actually use in a
given month? Really.
Would it matter if a few went missing?
And before you knew it, a couple pairs of
“Small” nipped through the air, all by themselves, and burrowed down
into my purse. Well, I could
hardly start digging them out, now could I?
When someone might come in at any moment?
Seriously, they just left me alone in the room with all those
lonely little gloves!
Later, I tried looking on Amazon and discovered
that I could purchase a whole box of “Small” gloves for about $0.25
each. Although you really
need a pair at any given time.
Who wants just one glove?
Apart from baseball players and the late Michael Jackson, I mean.
And I use these gloves many multiples of times.
When I’m finished with the shopping, I strip the gloves off as
quickly as possible. Now, of
course, they’re inside-out.
And very wet due to perspiration.
So I let them dry off in the car.
When that’s done, it’s a matter of turning the
gloves right-side-out again.
This takes both hands, of course, working one finger inside, while
holding the outside in place with the other hand until I can pull the
outer end away.
Of course, this means touching the parts of the
gloves that actually came in contact with various surfaces and objects
which may be contaminated with the Covid-19 virus, or any other
microscopic beasties whose sole mission in life is the get inside my
respiratory system. So, I
make sure to use a hand sanitizer immediately after resurrecting the
gloves.
After a few uses, the gloves tend to tear a
bit, what with being manhandled inside and outside; then it’s time to
pull another pair out of the box and repeat.
But the important part here is:
They fit! More or
less, of course. But they
actually fit!
Did I mention I have relatively small hands?
Goes with the territory, I guess.
Love, as always,
Pete
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