Absurd 2020

Today I found toilet paper.
​It was the first time I had seen it on the shelves in a month of going to the grocery store every week. It was the second place I went after not finding it at my usual store. It was the last one on the shelf, as if some employee found it mashed on the side of an aisle after the morning rush. Toilet paper shortage has been a real (and manufactured only by panic) thing lately and I was so happy to find it that I considered taking a thumbs up victory photo with it. I didn't - partially because the facial recognition unlock of my phone doesn't recognize me in a mask. But I also stepped back and thought about it. Me in a mask giving a happy thumbs up because I found something as inane as toilet paper was absurd. It's also peak 2020 so far. Even if things work out to the best they could for the rest of the year, I'm still going to be explaining to my eventual disbelieving grandkids that going out of the house in PPE and finding toilet paper after a month was a real experience that happened in 2020, and I'm guessing by no means a rare one. They're going to look at me like I'm Grandpa Simpson talking about tying an onion to my belt and in that moment of disconnect, I'm going to have a profound sadness that I can't express the absurdity of a year where (hopefully only) one hundred thousand people died and the rest of us struggled to find toilet paper.