Page 10 - COVID Consortium Journal - An Edited Collection of Student Art and Writing

Groceries for Agatha

Nick Cannon, City As School

My mother has a friend whose real name I shall not divulge. For the
purpose of this story let’s call her Agatha Burnenstrausse. Agatha is in her sev-
enties and has recently started chemotherapy. The chemo makes her tired and
sick so it is difficult to go out and get groceries and do other important errands;
especially during the CoronaVirus outbreak, when lines are longer and people
are emotionally stretched thin.

A few days ago my mother and I decided to venture into the outside world
to get some groceries. We were making our way down Broadway on the Upper
West Side when the topic of Agatha came up in conversation. Mother alerted
me to the fact that the chemotherapy treatments had just started and Agatha
was having her children send out weekly update blurbs to a select group of
people, one of whom happened to be my dear old mother. The blurbs contained
small but nice things like reviews of the Pilates video that my mother’s group
of friends have been circulating. (I tried it once, and gosh my mother and those
other old ladies are strong and flexible!) The store we were heading to was
Zabars, a Jewish staple in my neighborhood. We decided it would be nice of us
to call Agatha to see if there was anything she would like us to pick up for her
at the store. Mother dialed the number and got connected on the second ring.
After pleasantries and hellos, Agatha relayed a list of food to Mother who then
relayed said list to me so I could write it down in hopes we would not forget
what we were supposed to be buying.

Once we got to the store we noticed a long line weaving and snaking out-
side the store. Due to social distancing rules the line was structured by boxes
of masking tape on the ground each six feet apart. We ended up halfway around
the block from the entrance. Luckily the line moved relatively fast and we made
it to the doors within 20 minutes. The first thing I noticed was the lack of the
normal olive bar. Usually a wide array of olives are displayed in big vats where
you can self-serve whatever kinds of olives you prefer. That day though, the big
vats were nowhere to be seen and in its place was a gigantic pile of small, sealed,
plastic containers with a range of calamata olives to pickled artichoke hearts in
them. We made our way through the store picking up items Agatha had asked
for; monterey jack cheese, chicken pot pie, matzah balls, sliced rye bread, and
ice cream. Approaching the checkout line I noticed a rack of pastries. I then
had to make the difficult decision of whether I should buy cinnamon babka or

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