Wednesday, November 4th, 2020

Finding the one open entrance to the mall takes me a while. Inside, it is dark and grim. Few shops are open: the pharmacy, the supermarket, and a store with supposedly natural stuff that has just enough edible things to qualify. People are standing around in a sushi kiosk in the middle of the mall. Maybe they’re doing delivery or takeout. The supermarket is less crowded than usual. The produce is inexpensive. I suspect that they are under pressure to sell it to the few shoppers before it goes bad. The butcher’s bins of featured meat are full. Those of prepackaged meat are not. I get fruit, vegetables, some spices, bread, rice desserts, and a zero-calorie cola syrup for my seltzer maker. The aisle for buying less than ten items appears to be closed. Three young boys are sitting on the floor at the entrance to it with bags from another store. Apparently their mother has dumped them there while she shops. The cashier waves at me as I approach. The aisle is indeed open. I step over the boys to get there. When he takes my store credit card, the cashier asks me to enter my secret code. I’ve never needed that before. I have no idea what it might be. He says that he can enter my national ID number instead. OK. He inserts my card into the machine. Nothing happens. He flips it over and tries again. Nothing. I point to the smart chip in the card, which is outside of the scanner. He spins the card around and inserts it. Now it works. I exit the same way that I came in, walking around the outside of the mall to get to the bus stop. The heat on the bus is on. This may be the first time they have used it this season. It blows so hot from under my seat that I worry that it might cook my food. The rain resumes before we get to my stop. I have my baseball cap and my rain jacket. I get off the bus along with a young man in a Cleveland basketball shirt. He shivers. I am prepared.