I think we all expected a world-destroying virus to be far more cinematic, with explosions and zombies and leather-clad bikers roaming a barren wasteland. Instead, the Coronavirus pandemic has just made life in Oklahoma City into a mostly grating, somewhat dystopic novel filled with closed businesses and constant bureaucracy.
While most restaurants, bars, and clubs were shut down by the city for the next month or so the night before—except for the good ol’ boys down at McFinn’s—most of us woke up this morning to a veritable ghost town, filled with emptier-than-usual streets as an atmospheric grey hue clung to the horizon.
I had to send some letters today. If you think being in a food desert is bad, try being in a postal drought; the nearest place to get postage for my few pieces of mail is about two miles up the road at the Classen Tag Agency, where my personal mailbox rests.
Over the past week, the hard-working women there have erected Plexiglas partitions to help protect them from errant hacking and other traveling particles. Trying hard to keep it to about ten people at a time inside, per regulations, I hope they don’t close but, you know, I think they’re going to have to eventually.