Justin Evans

February 5, 2021

Haslam

ENG 2010

Flash Memoir: COVID-19

Around mid March when the world started going crazy over COVID I never really

thought anything of it. I just figured it was a dumb little thing that would blow over in a few

weeks and we wouldn’t hear about it again. Boy could I have been more wrong. I never thought

that I would miss an entire season of track or lose my job over something I thought was so small.

While this pandemic still hasn’t really affected me I have been able to see how something like

this has affected loved ones and lots of people in my community. The virus didn’t really do

anything to my moms work because she works from home and is still fairly busy. My brother and

I both lost our jobs which was no big deal. We were both able to find new ones fairly quickly.

However, both of my aunts were affected by this pandemic, one of them had her hours cut from

work and the other had to worry about her husband's business being shut down and both of them

losing a couple weeks of work from that business. The main thing that I noticed was a man who

would come into my work. I started working at Papa Murphy’s around May and I noticed that at

that time not a lot of people would wear masks and it didn’t seem like a big deal. I went into

work one day and a guy came in with a mask and gloves on and a wet wipe in his hand. I thought

this was a little strange but I didn’t say anything. I helped him with his order and he was on his

way. After he had left one of my co-workers came over to me and said,

“What was that all about?”

“I have no idea” I responded.

 I found an article from the CDC which says, “Wearing gloves outside of these instances

(for example, when using a shopping cart or using an ATM) will not necessarily protect you from

getting COVID-19 and may still lead to the spread of germs.” While wearing gloves may not be

very protective I think the reason he did this was just to help himself feel more safe. This man

comes in regularly always equipped with the same things and now no one even bats an eye. This

weird situation with this man has really opened up my eyes to this huge issue. He is still a regular

at the store and I will recognize him coming in every so often. As time went on and masks got

mandated and such I noticed that he would slowly bring in less items with him. First it was the

wet wipes, I noticed that he wasn’t coming in with them anymore but he still would wear the

gloves. Now with the state of the pandemic he only wears a mask which is still required in the

store. I liked how I was able to see how his views were changing based on what he was bringing

in with him, I could tell that he was starting to loosen up but was still being safe and keeping

others safe by wearing his mask. It was really interesting to see how he would bring in all these

things to help himself and others feel safe, in a way it made me think of things that I could be

doing to help stop the spread other than just wearing my mask and social distancing. While this

pandemic may not be affecting me or my family it has huge effects on the others around me and

we all play a huge part in it. Being able to see how much it can affect others has been impactful

on me and has caused me to try and do my part during this pandemic to help keep myself and

others around me safe.