When I left work on Friday, I headed straight to Aldi to get a jump start on my grocery shopping for the weekend. I had seen pictures of cleaned out stores, but I still was not all that concerned. Aldi was busy, but no more than usual for Friday evening. It did have a look of being marauded. If you needed bread or mushrooms or mac-n-cheese, you were not going to find it here. The canned goods isle was also slim pickings. I still managed to get most of the things on my list that usually comes from Aldi (our groceries are split between Aldi and Trader Joe’s). I made it to check out, got all of my things on the conveyor and then reached into my coat pocket for my wallet. Which was not there. I distinctly remember taking my wallet out of my bag and placing into the inside of my coat pocket. So this meant that my wallet had fallen out somewhere in the store.

My heart racing, I ran back to produce and the grapes. I had bent over to collect grapes that had fallen out of the packaging. That’s where my wallet had to have fallen out. I started lifting up crates of grapes and then I yelled “Has anyone seen a wallet!”. I heard someone gasp and say “oh no.” Then I ran back to check out where the cashier had just finished ringing up my items. By this time I was pretty frantic. I looked at her and said “I don’t have my wallet!” She rolled her eyes and sighed. Then she called a manager to come do an override. As she was doing this, the (very) young security guard walked up to me and said “Mam, what is your name?” I gave him all the names that people call me. Then he very seriously said “Mam. We have your wallet.” Then I turned into June Caprice reenacting any one of her damsel in distress scenes. Groceries paid for, I headed home to eat a gummy and stress clean the house. The next morning, I got back from finishing up the grocery shopping to find an envelope with only my last name written across it. I opened it to find my driver’s license and a note from the young security guard. He had removed my license to find out who the wallet belonged to, but had forgotten to put it back. He had hand delivered it to our home. An hour later, I was at the bank finishing up a refinance that required proof of identification. Reaching into my wallet and not finding my license there would have put a real wrench in things. We left the bank, bought a gift card and a thank you note which I hand delivered to that security guard.

I feel like I am standing in the middle of a frozen pond watching the ice break all around me. Meanwhile I’m standing on my own patch of ice, just floating along and pretending that everything is normal and okay. I am a scientist and I am not too concerned for myself in regards to the coronavirus. I am also not inclined to panic under such circumstances. Yet, seeing the state of the grocery stores followed with standing in the longest line at MicroCenter to buy an external hard drive, one can’t help but feel a little bit anxious right now. At some point during the day on Saturday, I realized that it would have been Chris and mine’s twenty second wedding anniversary. I laughed to myself and asked Chris “where do you think we would have gone this year?” As usual, there was no response. I irrationally think about how some events in this timeline would not happen if Chris were still living. Trump. Disney owning Star Wars and Marvel. The Tesla truck. The coronavirus.

Timelines are built on quicksand.

We have food. And toilet paper. My computer has been cleaned up and photos moved off of the hard drive so that if I have to work from home, my computer is ready. Right now, my little patch of ice is intact and we’re floating along.