The Grocery Store and the Birth of the Suffocation

In May of 2020, I was standing in line outside a grocery store in L.A. This was just two months into the covid shutdown. Groceries stores were one of the few places open at all. Masks were required and occupancy limits had be placed inside. Twelve of us stood about ten feet from each other in a long line.

I sneezed.

I didn’t think anything of it, as we all had masks on and we were outside anyway. This sneeze went no further than the fabric on my face.

A dark-haired man two people ahead of me turned around quickly and looked at me with intensity. I could see him out the corner of my eye. I knew what he was doing. He was taking issue with the sneeze. I ignored him, and he turned back around. We continued to wait in our spots on the cement apron outside the market.

He whipped around again a few minutes later, and looked pointedly at me. Finally, he spoke.

“You’re sick!”

I wasn’t.

“Allergies,” I said.

Others were turning to look at me now.

“You’re sick, and you have to leave!”

I couldn’t believe this guy was so worked up.

“Hey, it’s hay fever. I’m not sick. And I’m 20 feet away from you, so relax.”

He then raised his arm and pointed at me like Donald Sutherland in INVASION OF THE BODYSNATCHERS.

“YOU”RE SICK! YOU NEED TO LEAVE.”

I glanced at the others in line. The seemed ambivalent about participating.

“Dude, relax. I’m not leaving. No one in this line is sick.”

He went into some rant that made no sense. Then, getting no satisfaction, he left his spot and went into the store, ostensible to get help.

This was the moment I felt it. That mob mentality pulling something out of the air and mixing it in with fear and a predisposition for hall-monitor and party-pooper behavior: The momentum necessary to create a suffocating cloud of control.

I knew that the population had finally figured out something that some of us already knew: the structures in our society are just agreements we have with each other; nothing is set in stone. These structures can be changed with the flick of a wrist, if enough people were leaning in that direction.

The line into the grocery store started moving. We were going in. As I approached the grocery store door, I saw the dark-haired man practically vibrating next to two other men: A young security guard in a yellow reflective vest, and the store manager.

“THERE SHE IS! THAT’S THE ONE!

Neither the security guard nor the manager looked like they were willing to do anything about this.

I looked at the three of them and said, “I’m going to walk into this store and get my groceries and that’s it.” I walked past. I didn’t know what was going to happen next. People were acting bizarre. Fear had overcome all their sensibility. As I walked deeper into the store, I had no idea if this man was going to grab me, or jump me, or otherwise take out his agitation on me.

In the end, he didn’t.

But, I knew what was now in the air.