Thermometer shopping on Hilton Head: Confessions of a coronavirus survivalist | Opinion
I’d like to take America’s temperature right about now.
But I can’t find a thermometer.
Over the weekend, I ventured out with the other survivalists on Hilton Head Island and in Bluffton. I came away thinking I need to add a room onto the house to store paper towels we apparently need to survive the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.
I also came away feeling dirty.
Everything I look at appears to be filthy now that I’m scrubbing my hands every time I move from one room to the other at home.
Maybe I can understand why everything at home, including myself, needs to be hosed down with Clorox.
But a carpeted pharmacy? What’s up with that? It looks like the Virus Olympics training grounds.
The biggest surprise, though, was the absence of thermometers.
My wife finally found one deep in the menagerie of the Dollar General.
But I struck out at Walgreens, CVS and Walmart. I should have tried my locally owned pharmacies.
Maybe I overlooked the thermometers. It’s a lot more challenging to shop when you are playing a 3-D chess game trying to always keep that 6-foot social distance from your fellow germ-infested survivalists. You have to think several moves ahead.
I discovered that the marketplace lets me measure everything else in the world.
I can check my blood pressure and pulse. I found a stethoscope, and it wasn’t in the toy aisle.
I can pinpoint my ancestry with a DNA test, or prove the paternity of a baby with same-day results.
I can test my blood for nicotine, marijuana, cocaine, amphetamines, meth, ecstasy, benzos, barbiturates and opioids.
I can find out my blood-alcohol content.
I can measure my cholesterol in four different ways.
I can increase my hair volume, should I find any hair. And, yes, I can add hair, if needed.
Stores also offer mood support and calmness. I’m kind of shocked that stuff wasn’t sold out — even if it was just for the people who couldn’t find toilet paper.
I found ways to improve my brain performance, sharpen my mind and think more clearly.
And I could leave the store with no more itching, fungus, ingrown toenails, warts, red eyes or body fat.
I’ll spare you the “sexual wellness” section.
Later, I found a few thermometers at Walmart that apparently work in your ear for $17.83, perhaps a little steep for survivalists.
I had no idea that a neighborhood pharmacy could help me in so many ways.
Other than a niggling little thing like taking my temperature during a pandemic.
