People Still Manage To Be Like This At Grocery Stores

So I wasn’t the victim of this Karen, but I was the enactor of the petty revenge. In the midst of this pandemic, a lot of businesses are limiting the number of people that can be in the store at one time. I was going the the grocery store across the street when I see the MASSIVE line. Now there were only like 50 people in line, but by following the 6ft/2m rule, this line was physically pretty long.

I needed some stuff and the weather was nice so I just decided to wait and take this opportunity to relax. Now this Karen in front of me is on the phone with someone complaining about how long the line is and how big of a hurry she’s in. This woman has the full mask, gloves, goggles, hairnet (dont know what THAT is for) and a custom shirt that says “STOP stay 6 feet away from me”. Any time someone passing along the sidewalk came close she dodge them to stay away.

About 10 minutes pass and now theres only 30 people in line in front of us when this woman (early-mid 20s) who is 4 places ahead of Karen sneezes into her sleeve. Now I want to take this opportunity to say that SNEEZING IS NOT A SYMPTOM OF COVID-19 AND NOT INDICATIVE OF ONES STATUS.

It’s April and springtime and as someone who has suffered my whole life with allergies, I can tell the difference between a “im sick” sneeze and a “pollen tickled my nose” sneeze. This was an allergy sneeze. But Karen felt like she had just discovered a bioterrorism plot.

She begins yelling at the poor girl. Keep in mind this girl and Karen are still like 30 feet (9m) away so Karen is LITERALLY yelling. Karen is mainly giving a box soap lecture on how this girl is endangering the community and Karen’s kids for not following self-quarantine orders when she OBVIOUSLY has the virus.

She of course calls the employee monitoring the door over who sends out the manager (we all know Karen wouldve called for the manager eventually am i right?)

The manager tries to figure out the situation while Karen threatens to call the cops to arrest the girl. Eventually the girl just gives up and leaves. She’ll just come back or go to a different store. This satiates Karen and Im more than convinced she was just looking for excuses to kick people out of line and speed up her entry.

As someone who works in diseases, I have seen how flat out stupid people have been in regards to this disease have been and decide that Karens actions of nearly starting a panic just shouldn’t go unpunished. The temperature was 88F (32C ish) which isnt really hot, but since it was the first day to break past 65F, I could tell it definitely FELT warmer. People were definitely sweating, and considering how long people were waiting outside in the sun, people were getting a good dosage of heat.

I waited until Karen was the next person in the store when I noticed she was definitely fanning herself. Right before the door clerk said it was ok, I asked her, “ma’am, are you feeling ok? you look a little warm, kinda feverish.” She snapped back “I’m fine its the sun mind your business.”

The door guard caught on to what i was hinting at and agreed. “Miss we’ll have to take you temperature.” and he radioed the monitors (the store has a thermal gun to check the temperature of anyone suspicious. Ive never seen them use it but I knew they had it) She cried “why? its just because Ive been in the sun, you didnt check anyone elses temperature?” He said “its just a policy to check anyone who looks feverish.

The guy comes and takes her temperature. 100.7F (38C) just over the 100.4F limit the store set. The temperature guy informs her that she will not be allowed to enter the store for public safety. She begins to throw a conniption fit saying “its the sun, im not sick, test HIM”. They do. I get a 99.9F. The guy informs me that I can now enter the store.

I thank him and go in to grab my milk while I can here Karen still yelling. I hope she was able to get her essential pinot grigio somewhere. Just not here.

Side note: most grocery stores have an early window to allow elderly shoppers 60+ to come with lower risk of infection. Almost suggested that if she wanted to avoid contamination she should do that (she was no older than 45 but knew that would piss her off)