By DR. KAYLENE ARMSTRONG
The woman was wearing a white dust mask over her nose and mouth, which made it difficult to understand what she said. Many of the older people shopping in Walmart that day were wearing some kind of mask though most workers didn’t and many younger shoppers didn’t either.
The masks are all part of the protocol that the CDC says people should follow when they are outside during the coronavirus pandemic that is raging through the U.S.
“What, Grandma?” asked the little girl dangling from the handle of the Walmart cart, her knees pulled up so her feet didn’t touch the floor. When she stood, her chin barely cleared the bar of the cart.
The child also wore a mask but this one appeared to be homemade from a fabric covered in colorful bubbles. It was a rectangle that had been pleated on the short sides and elastic sewn at the corners. The elastic was draped around the child’s tiny ears, holding the mask in place.
Both wore plastic gloves, the kind the sandwich makers wear at Subway. The gloves were big on the woman and comically huge on the child, who kept tugging on the tops, trying to keep them on her tiny fingers.
“We need to check the expiration dates,” Grandma explained. “See, here it is.”
She lifted a container of Yoplait Harvest Peach yogurt so the child could see what she meant. She also pulled her cart closer to the display case.
“Stay close,” she warned the child as another cart edged around the corner of the cooler that holds butter, cottage cheese and sour cream. She was trying her best to maintain the requisite six-foot social distance from other shoppers.
“Yes, ma’am,” the child said, tugging on her gloves and then readjusting her mask and scratching her left cheek as she scrunched her eyes.
“And don’t touch your face,” Grandma ordered sternly — more advice from health care professionals trying to get people to do their best to stop the spread of the virus with good hand washing and no face touching.
“Can we get ice cream, pleeeeese?” the child begged in a small pleading voice.
The woman jerked on the front of the cart, maneuvering it past her hips so she could grab the handle and push the cart down the aisle. The child held onto the side of the cart with one hand as she skipped along.
“We’ll see,” Grandma answered, heading swiftly for the milk cooler. “We need to get out of here.”