We're still allowed to go out to get food and other necessities, but will you find them?
The nearest grocery store to my house is about seven miles away. It's on my way to work, or home from work, depending on the time of day. It's your typical modern supermarket, complete with pharmacy. On a normal day I would find almost all of what I was looking for.
In these abnormal days, the smart shopper gets there when the doors open. Even then, don't expect to find everything on your list. So then what?
There are other stores in just about every direction, mostly farther away. On social media, people share their reports. Those reports are seen at least by their friends, if not by an unlimited audience. Also, we're told to limit our exposure to other people and public contact points. Personally, I like to limit how much gasoline I use anyway. This is reinforced by the information that gas pump handles are some of the most contaminated surfaces. It was always true, but the new virus appears to be pretty hardy. Anything a lot of people touch is more likely to spread infection.
All this takes place in a buzz of information, some warning of dire risk, some dismissing the concern of millions of people as a panic over nothing.
The designated forager in a household has to decide how far to venture in search of whatever was not available at their first stop. How many door handles is it worth? How often do the workers in this emporium wash their hands and clean their work stations? How much should you worry at all?
Are Americans more self conscious than other nationalities about looking stupid? It seems like a lot of what goes around the internet these days counsels looking cool at all costs. The "be cool" posts mostly minimize those costs, but some of them are now saying, "go ahead and die, you're helping the economy." So we have two strains going: the It's Nothing strain, and the Bleeding Lungs of Courage strain. The most important factor for both of them is that you not look like you were worried when this is all over. There's even a batch of apparently scientific information going around to the effect that the virus isn't as bad as we think, and that it will wind down sooner than later.
The problem with the quest for treasures in the retail wilderness is that the threat is not from visible monsters. It's from that person next to you in the bread aisle, or a spot you missed when disinfecting your shopping cart. It's a random sneeze cloud over a sidewalk that looks deserted by the time you get there. You can't put on your armor and grab your magic sword. You can't zap it with your death ray, dive and roll, and draw a bead on the next bogey coming out of an alley as you pass. At most you might have rubber gloves and a paper mask, which you must throw away as soon as you return to your pod, there to decontaminate before entering. How important was it to go out in the first place, and into every other place that you investigated in your search?
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