About a third of us were maskless, including a similar fraction of the employees. The remaining two thirds of shoppers paid no notice; nary a Karen nor any of her subspecies were to be found. At least they weren’t heard from. I’ve long suspected that those scolds only hector when they feel the crowd at their back.

I spoke with a maskless employee at the customer service desk who called the maskless manager over and the maskless manager and I had a maskless conversation about the possibility of her taking on my oldest as a grocery bagger a few days a week. He wants a summer job and I’m all for it. He hopes to try his hand at one of several restaurants where he’s already buddies with the staff and gets treated like a mascot. I want him to be a number for a while, learn to deal with people who he doesn’t already have a friendship with, and earn praise and criticism from people he hasn’t known since he was eight. Publix grocery store, particularly now that they don’t require a facial security blanket is just the ticket. Plus, he can ride his bike to work so I won’t have to drive him.