By Alejandro Rodriguez Munoz
It was a perfect day for ice-cream. So Laura, my host mom, Caylee, her dog, and I walked to the 7-Eleven that is five minutes from our house.
We arrived at the store, only to realize that neither of us was wearing a mask or gloves. But we didn’t want to go back empty-handed. Ice-cream was worth the risk.
I volunteered to go in.
Laura had an idea. I could use the plastic bag she was carrying to clean up after Caylee. Good idea.
I slipped the bag, which was blue, over my right hand and went into the store, careful to use the bagged hand to touch the door handle. I assumed that the bag was now infected. Just three people were inside, including the guy working behind the counter. Only one was wearing a mask, and it wasn’t the guy who works there. I went to grab the ice cream.
When I opened the freezer, I realized that to pick up the ice cream I’d need to use my left hand, the one without the glove. I’m exposing my “clean” hand, I thought, but I had no choice. So I took the ice cream and decided not to touch anything else before we got home.
When I got to the cashier, I put the ice cream on the counter. Then I remembered that my wallet was in my right pocket. How was I supposed to get my debit card out if both of my hands were already infected? I took off the contaminated glove with my contaminated left hand and grasped my wallet, not yet contaminated, with my naked right hand.
God knows how I managed to get the debit card out of my wallet, while the cashier was staring at me, astonished, waiting for me to pay. I finally did and left the store, opening the door with my already contaminated left hand. I was carrying the bag with the ice cream in my right hand, which was again protected by Caylee’s poop bag. The cashier, I noted, touched both the ice cream and the bag.
Exhausted, we went back home.
At the front door, I took off my hoodie and dropped it on the floor. Then I put the ice cream in the kitchen and washed my hands. I went back for my hoodie and put it in the washing machine. Then I washed my hands a second time. It worked, I thought.
Then I realized: When I paid at the store, I’d entered the secret pin of my debit card on the reader with my “clean” right hand, contaminating it. Later, I used that same contaminated hand to hold my phone on our way back home.
It’s late as I write this, as a digital note in my phone. It may be contaminated, I don’t know.
It’s been a long day.