Being Essential Isn't As Great As It Sounds

Retail, in general, is more time consuming than you realize. I haven't posted since September 2019. That was the last time before the madness of the holiday season finally took hold.

Since then, I have worked first, second and third shifts. My spare time activities included watching a toddler and learning way more than I ever needed to know about Superwings and revisiting Scooby Doo. There really isn't a lot of downtime to sit down and write out a thoughtful post.

When the lull usually comes every year, I tend to ramp up my postings. This year the lull turned into overtime at work. My store was deemed essential because it has groceries and a pharmacy. What did everyone come to my store for (besides toilet paper and sanitizer)? Televisions and video game consoles and books. Computers, routers and printers. Beats and Apple Watches and Air Pods. If you can't tell, my usual domain is in electronics and entertainment.

I've dealt with the initial rush of Covid-19, where everyone was ill prepared to work at home. I've dealt with the rush from tax refund checks, where everyone came in looking for high end electronics. I've handled the first round of stimulus checks. You know, the ones that dropped directly into bank accounts. I've handled the second round of stimulus checks. The ones that came printed on paper, found in the mailbox. By the time those rolled around, we were out of pretty much everything I listed in the paragraph above.

I've been both thanked for my service and cussed out for things beyond my control. I don't control what we get in, when we get it or that people bought them before you got there. I also don't control pricing and I will not price match to that sketchy seller on eBay. I've heard complaints about having to wear a mask and I've seen people come in with what could only be described as WWI era gas masks on. I've had more than one person tell me that we were overreacting about this "fake virus". This has happened while I was ringing up their purchases and while I was disinfecting every surface that someone could even fathom touching.

I've seen the beauty in humanity and the ugliness of humanity too. I've had my shift cut short because the store had to shut down early for fear of riots and looting. I've had to clear every single item out of our glass cases, load them into carts and wheel them to a safer place for that same reason.

Why am I telling you all of this? It's not for any particular reason. I'm trying to explain why I've seemingly abandoned this blog for the past nine months. Time slips by and the world is definitely in an uncomfortable place right now. Everyone living in my house was deemed an essential worker in some way and had to keep working through all of this mess, which definitely made things more challenging. The most challenging being the escape artist toddler living in one of the bedrooms.

Baseball will be back soon. I have mixed feelings about that, but I'm happy that it's back. You may be wondering why the 2020 Topps card of Yoan Moncada is up at the top of this post. There's a good reason. It is the first White Sox card I pulled for 2020. Yes. This post has been gestating since Series One dropped.

I will try not to make it another nine months between postings.