When I told a friend that I’d scored a nine-pack on the way home from my Saturday bridge lesson he didn’t even skip a beat before he asked, “Double-ply?”

“Yep. Name brand and ultra soft!”

What I didn’t tell him was that I practically had to climb into the high shelving to get it, and there was one more pack behind it, but I left it for someone else who needed it. After all, we don’t live in some third world country where there won’t be any more tomorrow, or soon.

Boy howdy did I ever get that wrong when I went out today to pick up a few must-haves even though My Daughter From Another Mother had called last night to see if I was self-quarantining the way the elderly are supposed to do.

I didn’t wear a mask on my outing, but I did wear leather gloves, all day.

At the top of my list was a charging cord for my game pad so I could play solitaire. It hadn’t worked for a week and I was having withdrawals.

I was met at that store with this sign on the door: WE APOLOGIZE BUT WE ARE OUT OF HAND SANITIZER.

Most people knew last week that you couldn’t buy hand sanitizer anywhere, but today the discount store didn’t have any baby wipes, or hand and bath soaps except for a few bars of Lava, or smellgood soaps.

With my digestive issues I was pleased to find the last 24-pack of Imodium gel caps, and also tossed three 12-packs in my cart.

I was also able to score a bottle of multi-vitamins and calcium, but vitamin C was non-existent.

Then I made it to the detergent aisle, or where the clothes soap is usually kept. There were only a few odd-shaped containers with pod detergent.

By then I realized that each time I saw someone shopping on an aisle I’d go over to the next one, and other shoppers did the same.

The virus made us avoid contact, as it should in these uncertain times. It also caused mothers with small children to keep them close, although some kiddos flashed beautiful smiles my way.

Then I saw three teenage girls together.

Close together.

Maybe they were also too close to each other under the circumstances.

They reminded me of my beautiful 12-year-old granddaughter.

I learned yesterday that a girl who sits next to her in math class at Enid went on a cruise with her parents, and returned in early March from Italy. They are awaiting their test results for the deadly corona virus.

So is our family, and I know we’re all ready for scientists to find a cure so we can return to what we once called normal lives.