The mind is willing, not the body

Not Ottawacker Jr.’s though, mine. This photo basically marked the only hiatus in an otherwise uninterrupted day of moving around and having fun. I was the problem – and, indeed, now I think of it, the mind wasn’t particularly keen on it either.
 
I went outside today, into the great wide open. Holy shit, what a trial that was. I’ve essentially been in lockdown for the past 8 weeks, with one solitary visit to the butcher’s the sole outing (and that wasn’t something to shout about). But today, I had a couple of errands to attend to – one of which involved going to the post office to send back the keys to the apartment in Spain I had used in March.
 
I got into the post office to find three people in line: the first was perhaps the stupidest woman in Ottawa. She had brought 300 envelopes to send out, all of which were the same weight and size, and being sent to the same province. Unfortunately, she had forgotten to bring the contents of any of the envelopes with her, and so was trying to gauge the weight of something she could neither describe nor imagine, and of whose weight she had only an approximate memory.
 
“I should have brought it with me,” she said.
“It would have helped,” said the clerk, whose patience was impeccable.
“It’s a book,” she offered, helpfully. “We send one out every year. Don’t you have records of what we sent last year?”
“I’m afraid not, ma’am,” he replied.
“It’s about 50 pages big,” she said.
“But what size is it?” he asked.
“I told you, about 50 pages,” she said.
“Yes, but is it letter size, or A5 size or smaller – or bigger?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “But it fits into these envelopes.”
 
They eventually came to a good guesstimate of the cost and off she moved.
 
Next up was a lady in a wheelchair, who dropped her pen as she was signing a form and had to ask the clerk to come round and pick it up for her. This he did, with the sort of forced smile you see from people standing next to Donald Trump in a photo op. She only took 10 minutes to buy her stamps, find the cash in her purse, and move on out.
 
The third person had by then given up, and left.
 
Then it was my turn. I was given the third degree (I am a regular and the clerk knew I was going to be away for a while).
 
“I thought you were dead,” was the not-so-promising opening gambit.
“So did I,” I answered.
 
We carried on back and forth for 5 minutes, until he deigned to get my mail, which he brought to me in a big container – about the size of the grocery baskets we have been using of late.
 
“You’ll have to pull it over the counter,” he said, “I’m not supposed to come round unless someone really needs help.”
 
So I pulled it through – and brought the plastic protective shield down on myself. Not just knocked it a bit – the whole protective sheet fell down on me. I dropped the parcels back onto the desk and grappled with the Perspex sheet for a while.
 
“What the …?” was the only possible response. We both said it at the same time. I handed it back and eventually made my way out of the post office in a state of shock. I mean, God knows when that had been cleaned for the last time, or who had coughed and spluttered or sneezed and spattered all over it. I disinfected myself as best as I could once I was back in the car, but seeing as it smacked me in the face, I am merely hoping here that the low infection rate in Ottawa means I escape once again.
 
But what can you do? For eight weeks I have self-isolated, I go out for 5 minutes and end up acting out a scene from the “Carry On…” films. “Carry On With the Covid,” most likely.
 
Anyway, I ducked out of the remaining chore and went straight home and jumped in the shower.
 
To cap it all, to send three keys from Canada to the UK by registered mail cost me $25. I could buy them each their own plane ticket for that…