a coronavirus moment
Lighthouse beach is famed for a couple of reasons, not the least is the surf by the north wall when conditions are right and the occasional tasty left at the other end – not to mention the appetite of the sharks that have claimed a few lives in the last couple of years, including Tadashi Nakahara, an always friendly face at the Ramada and a pure demon amongst the waves.
Lately though, with things being the way they are with this virus, a man finds himself walking this stretch of beach up and back most mornings, leaving the waves to the kids. Getting out of their way is a lesson hard learnt by blokes my age. Eyes gone, circulation buggered, back ratshit, timing rooted .. you name it, we’ve got it. But the beach is a kind servant, and no matter what the tide is the sand is forgiving on old legs.
I introduced myself to another codger today, we’ve been passing each other by for about a fortnight with just a social-distance nod but a bloke can’t be doing that forever so today I stopped when we came abreast and I asked him what his name was.
‘Geoff.’
‘Howyezgoin mate, I’m Peter.’
‘Strange times, you reckon Geoff?’
‘Fucken oath, mate. Some Chinese bug is it?’
At this point Geoff struck me as a bloke who doesn’t wake up in the morning and power on the iPad to read the SMH, New York Times and Al Jazeera.
So I had to wake him up to it. The bloke’s my vintage and he needs to know.
‘I was watching TV the other week and saw this cage of bats in a Chinese meat market, all of them hanging upside down off the top tier and being bats they were shitting all over themselves, looked like they’d been stuck in there for a week.’
This is what you have to do when time is short and the bug is loose: spread the knowledge.
‘Then some local bloke comes into the shop, buys a couple, takes them home and cooks them for dinner.’
Geoff nearly keeled over, the poor bastard, this was not something he expected to hear halfway along Lighthouse Beach on a beautiful Autumn morning with a soft south-westerly blowing the tops off half a dozen peaks littering the the outside banks.
But he managed a half-smile, and before turning to go, said, ‘not the sort of thing I’d put on my diet, Pete.’
petebowes.com 
Ok, A Conoravirus Moment. Subway, Lunch today, they have these stickers on the floor, so I put my badass Gold Coast thongs on said sticker, they cover it, I am chuffed. There are two Sandwich Professionals, one is louder and more efficient then the other. I look at the quieter on with sympathy, she takes my order: six inch Parmesan, BLT, plastic cheese of choice. Now, due to social distancing, you can only go as fast as social distancing allows. So Loudly serves me next, what SALADS! I am not to sure if I was being ferocious or I was hard of hearing generally. Sorry?SALADS!
Everything, apart from Cucumber, The first lady turned up for payment, it was cool.