O.C. Writers

By Barbara Neal Varma // 

It happened while I was grocery shopping in Vons Pavilions in Aliso Viejo; an ominous tickle in my nose that foretold a sneeze was on the way.

Normally, that wouldn’t be a problem; I’ve long known how to handle escaping germs in public, but that was before a global pandemic hit the planet and our little Orange County corner of it. Now any errant cold-like symptoms could easily be suspect by others, and shy me didn’t want to cause a scene, especially in the frozen foods section of my favorite food store. I used to drive my mom here from her cozy condo in Laguna Woods. We’d roll our carts down the wide aisles together, gathering up the week’s groceries while catching up on this or that. I was thankful the store had survived the pandemic because, while my sweet mom is gone, the memories remain.

The nose tickle grew more insistent. Adding to the fun was the fact I was masked up because my nose had felt a bit wonky that morning. In the Before COVID Times, I would’ve chalked it up to a change in the weather or allergies or cat hair in the sheets from our two fluffy felines.

These days, however, any symptom of unknown origin, no matter how slight, makes me worry the dreaded pirate virus has found me at last. Sure, the at-home COVID test came back negative—but what did it know? Maybe I hadn’t explored my nostril enough.

Either way, my current and increasingly pressing options were 1) sneeze into the mask—eww—or, 2) remove the thing before things reached critical mass. And I had very little time to decide.

I had no time, in fact. My body’s impulse to expel foreign material was proving more powerful than any public behavior protocol. Reflexively, I whipped the cloth off to one side, caught the sneeze in my inner elbow like Mom had shown me when I was 12, and pulled my nose bra back into place, all in one frenzied, desperate motion. It was a doozy, too, stronger for my trying to hold it in and amplified by the surrounding glass doors protecting the frozen goods.

That cleared the aisle. For a brief, peaceful moment, people of every political affiliation were of one accord as they hurried away out of frozen foods with their kids. One senior gent did a smooth u-turn maneuver with his cart, barely missing another shopper innocently in the way.

The subtle avoidance continued for the next leg of my shopping tour, my intended path through the fruits and vegetable section now magically clear and unfettered.

And while I was a tad embarrassed about the whole thing, praying no one had captured my unbridled sneeze for a looping TikTok gif, I confess I kind of enjoyed the extra walking room my fellow shoppers afforded me. Suddenly, it was a straight line to the tomatoes and any other produce or food products on my list. Approaching the deli counter was a breeze, as other wary souls happily gave me a wide berth while not making eye contact.

Alas, the public shunning was short-lived. By the time I arrived at the checkout counter, my notoriety seemed to have faded because the folks in line with me started getting a little crowdy. The gal behind reached within inches of me to snag the latest People magazine, prompting me to shuffle closer to the guy in front who kept scooting back to give the cashier better wand-access to his cart’s stack of boxed wine. I had to keep recalculating my position to try to stay within my personal comfort and safety zone, the last woman standing in the forgotten art of social distancing.

But at least I’d been accepted into polite society again.

Still, I thought, trying to hold my middle ground, where’s a good sneeze when you need one?

---