April 15, 2020: The Surgeon General and Takeout

I went on a run to Pure Spice, masked and gloved and overcome with yearning for har gao and Singapore noodles, after more than a month with not even one non-home-cooked meal. (Do not lecture me about having somebody deliver. We’ll get to that.) This could be classified as 3 – Protect the vulnerable and 4 – Keep the local economy afloat, since supposedly Jade District merchants are still struggling more than average.  

In some way, I think we all worry about which of our personal favorite businesses will survive these times. If Kim Jong Grillin’ and Pure Spice survive, the new world will still hold Asian-food culinary joy for me. If not, it’s going to be a slog.

As instructed, I called in my order ahead of time, and waited, far apart from a few other customers, outside the shop. Please: one person in shop at a time. It was a nice day to wait outside. We all knew who was next.

Here’s a picture of the counter at Pure Spice, a marvel of clear plastic with a little hole for payment. They were as careful as could be, fresh gloves to handle my request. And I should have been the only customer in there, but I wasn’t.  Right inside the door, not six feet away, no mask, was a guy slumped in the only chair, looking like he was too tired to move. He was the Grub Hub guy or Food Express, or whatever. No mask, no six feet, plumb worn out. I looked at him, and I thought: I’ll just give him a wide berth, and I’m actually glad I made this run myself.

I got two orders of everything and delivered one to the parking lot of my-friend-who-usually-does-Singapore-noodles-with-me. We shouted hello across the lot. So it was a rare real-life sighting of someone I haven’t seen since the beginning, all in all a success.

And then I went home and decanted and reheated according to what I have been told are the Surgeon General’s guidelines for safe handling of takeout.  I Googled around to confirm that the SG had actually given takeout guidelines, in case my buddy Lori had been pulling my leg on this topic, and I had no luck, but it was a cursory search. I did get to reminisce about famous Surgeon General pronouncements of my lifetime, not just the anti-cigarette warning, or the don’t-drink-while-pregnant one, which have been consistently before us upon cartons, cans, and bottles ever since they first appeared, but also the brief, modern guidance of Dr. Jocelyn Elders, SG under Bill Clinton from 1993 to 1994. Dr. Elders called for legalizing marijuana, and lauded the benefits of masturbation as an alternative to teen pregnancy.  (Young people who think I’m kidding: Look it up.)

Hence the one-year stint as Surgeon General. It wasn’t the weed advice that got her booted.

I have seen a few articles flashing past on social media lately about how people are coping with the quarantine, if they were in the habit of hooking up with other folks via online sites. Like Dr. Elders, those articles suggest do-it-yourself alternatives as a safer course. Dr. Elders was a woman ahead of her time, and a woman of ours, in so many ways.