EVERYDAY LIFE IN BROWNSVILLE DURING THE CORONAVIRUS SCARE

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Ana and I walked out of Boca Chica H.E.B. today, each feeling like we'd just won the lottery, with a dozen Grade A Large eggs in hand.

We'd navigated the carefully metered line out front, allowing a dozen customers to enter at a time, used the complimentary towelette to wipe any latent virus off our faces and the shopping cart handle.

Once inside, it felt we'd just been given an all day pass to an amusement park and could pick any offering in the whole damn place.

One pound boxes of Riceland Rice called out from the shelf where they'd been tossed, but Ana reminded me we'd purchased 5 kilograms(11.023 lbs) of Double Horse Vadi Mata(red long grain rice) from India the day before at the international store on Price Road.

We settled on just the eggs, a bag of elbow macaroni, a package of pepper jack cheese and a 32 count Hill Country Water.  Our refrigerator and pantry could benefit from a few days of zero grocery shopping.

Ana just served me a desert she calls kamote/banana-q, with the bananas that grow in town sliced and caramelized, along with sweet potato.  Wonderful!

A movie that's been playing in the background, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, just finished with a tragic, melodramatic ending.  Ana had already seen it in the Philippines on Netflix and is in texting contact with her former classmates in the U.S. and family back home.

As may be evident by my lack of blogging, I'm simply bored with politics.  No, not a late life crisis, but more of a life reinvention, with more focus on the future than might be typical for a person in their seventies.

LOCAL SUPPLIES OF WATER, SANITIZER, DISINFECTANT DISAPPEAR QUICKLY WITH MILD CORONAVIRUS PANIC

Hand Sanitizer Section at H.E.B. Plus

"Boca Chica  H.E.B. is in a state of panic.  Let's go darling!" said Ana urgently.

I was on board for what I thought would simply be a photo shoot as we didn't really need anything, but once we got in the store, we quickly got caught up in the herd mentality and found ourselves fighting for water, sanitizer and disinfectant.

Boca Chica H.E.B., not our normal store, despite being the closest, was already out of sanitizer and disinfectant and almost out of water at about 7 PM last night.  Supplies of flour, masa, lard and rice were nearly depleted.

When we got to the checkout area with our water, the lines were prohibitive, so we decided to take our business to H.E.B. Plus on Paredes Line Road.  It's long been obvious that Boca Chica H.E.B. is not well managed, simply refusing to hire enough cashiers.  The plan is to force the clientele to the self-checkout area or to stand in long lines.  Corporate frequently makes these choices in poorer areas to maximize profits.

As someone very familiar with retail, it's obvious to me that H.E.B. and Walmart make obscene profit in Brownsville and their collective disregard for local customers in not hiring enough cashiers is simply greedy profiteering.

CORONA VIRUS REPORT OF CASES AT VALLEY REGIONAL CIRCULATES INTERNET

From the editor:  We are certainly not verifying this rumor as it may be completely bogus, but a Facebook account titled Brownsville Online circulated this rumor today: