WHO WAS THAT MAN?
                                                      T. Wieland Allen

     I just returned from my 6:00 a.m. trip to Walmart to do my bi-weekly grocery shopping.  Fortunately it wasn't raining because the bigwigs at Walmart had implemented the caution of only allowing a certain number of oldies, speaking of seniors, in the door to shop because of the pandemic scare.  We "oldies" have our own allotted time to shop at Walmart, fortunately.  However, I never knew there were so many of us in our town.  Since I arrived there at 6:05, there was a reasonably short line standing outside to enter, considering that we had to stand on the consecutive yellow lines which marked the six feet distance we had to keep from the person in front of us and behind us.  I suddenly did not feel like a senior but instead I felt like a kindergartner filing into the school who had been assigned distance markers to keep Billy from harassing Sarah or vice versa.  In this day and age it's more likely to be Sarah harassing Billy.  
   We were obedient to the Walmart worker who stood halfway between the line and the door.  For some reason, I had to resist the urge to tattle to the Walmart line monitor about the man standing two people behind me who was refusing to stand on the yellow lines and instead insisted on standing between the yellow lines.  I normally am not a judgmental person, but I have noticed that the more rules and regulations we are asked to follow during this worldwide pandemic the more tempted I am to be a little bit rebellious to the guidelines. 
   There is a voice in the mind of most of us humans that when we are told not to do something, we instinctively want to do it just to see what is so important about it to warrant a warning.  I always relate it to my grand nephew who was visiting us one time when he was 5 years old and my husband took him to the street in front of our house, picked the boy up in his arms, stood on the curb of the busy street with him and told the young boy not to go into the street under any circumstances because it was a busy street and the youngster might get killed by a fast car.  My husband put the young boy down in the yard to play with the other kids while he went into the house to get something.  No longer was my husband's back turned than the kid walked right out into the middle of the busy street and looked up and down the street to see what he was going to miss that his uncle didn't want him to enjoy.  No car hit him, but I could see on the kid's face what I always thought God must have seen on Adam's face when God cautioned Adam, for his own good, not to do something.  There was a look on our young relative's face of, "I knew Uncle Steve was lying.  There must be something great out here that he doesn't want me to have."  You know that voice in your head that tells you nothing is going to happen if you don't obey the rules.  It has caused humanity problems, destruction and even death since the beginning of the earth.  There were those people in line with us at Walmart who insisted on standing between the lines instead of on them.
    Back to my story about my trip to Walmart to pick up some groceries.  I was glad to see that 99% of the seniors who were shopping along with me had masks on their faces and many had plastic gloves or rubber gloves on their hands, just like I did.  I even had a big scarf around my neck, covering up every spare inch of skin from my shirt to my chin.  You can't be too cautious.  My very cautious son had warned me to be extra careful at Walmart because his brother-in-law had fed him a horror story about how few people were obeying the new rules and regulations pertaining to the pandemic by shopping without masks and even in shorts and summer shirts.  My experience was contrary to what was reported to him.  Now, for Me, a confirmed rule follower, the only skin that might be exposed to the drops of the pandemic virus was the skin between the top of my mask, which was right under my eyes, and the beginning of my hair.  I felt like I had been a very obedient person and had, to the letter of the law, obeyed what the CDC experts had advised.  It was a somewhat eerie feeling to see everyone covered up with masks, scarves, long sleeved shirts, long pants, shoes that covered their feet and various kinds of gloves covering their hands. 
   Suddenly something happened that surprised me and it has left me with some consternation about my appearance.  Almost every person in that store was covered up completely and some people had hats on their heads, just to make sure the drops of virus did not lodge in their hair.  I had not thought about that precaution myself.  The scene in that store reminded me of some movies about the world being destroyed and everybody was rushing to make sure they had enough food if they died, which always defied logic to me. So there we senior citizens were, decked out in our homemade camouflage gear, thankfully, as prevention against the drops of virus that were supposedly in the air, pushing our baskets on which we had sprayed the handles thoroughly cleaned of any suspicious "drops" using the paper towels that had been sprayed with disinfectant as we entered the store.  Happily feeling like I was incognito in my gear, looking like everyone else, suddenly a man pushing a cart said to me, "Good morning, Tommy.  How are you?" 
   I was flabbergasted.  How had the man recognized me with only a few inches of my face being exposed to the air?  I was amazed how he had recognized me with so little of "me" being exposed.  I answered the man politely that I was wonderful and asked how he was, mindfully keeping six feet between us.  I was trying to act like I knew the man who had kindly spoken to me because few people were talking, either because of the early hour or because of the fear of breathing in a drop of the virus.  I had no idea what the identity was of the man who had spoken as if he knew we very well.  All I could see was gray hair, but every head there in the store that was exposed had gray hair in various poses of disarray, considering the early hour.
   As the nice, friendly man and I pushed our baskets further apart, making sure we were at least six feet from each other, I began to think, okay, what about me is so recognizable that the man recognized me with only a few inches of my body exposed when I didn't recognize him with the same number of inches of skin exposed.  Let's see, was it my ample derriere of which I used to try to cover up until JayLo made well shaped rear ends on women popular, for which I am eternally grateful to Jaylo?   No, that was covered up with a long vest.  Was it my distinctive German nose that I inherited from my dad?  No, it was completely covered up by the mask.  Was it something about my hair?  No, I had dyed it the day before and it came out a darker color than usual.  There was no logical explanation to me on how the man recognized me while I did not recognize him in his cautious pandemic coverings.  All I could see on him were his eyes and gray hair, just like me and everybody else in the store.  He looked like every other man in the store. 
   That experience will give me something to keep my mind busy, at least for the day, on what is so recognizable about me that a man could single me out in a store filled with people who all looked alike from a distance of much more than six feet, when I was completely covered up except for my eyes and hair.
   I rarely look in a mirror except when putting on makeup, but I might have to don my pandemic gear again and stand in front of a mirror and figure out what is so unique about my appearance for me to have been recognized quickly and easily by the man, whomever he is.  No, I won't do that.  Just as curious to me is who the dadgum man is!  Now, that is the real mystery!  That will keep my mind busy at least all day.  I may never figure it out. 
   Isn't it kind of pitiful that here we are in the middle of a worldwide pandemic with not much encouragement that it will be over soon, and things are so boring from being cooped up for three weeks that the only exciting thing to happen to me is being recognized in the grocery store by some mysterious man.  I guess the question in my mind is, should I be complimented or should I be insulted? I think I'll consider myself complimented to have been so easily recognizable.
   Life does keep getting more and more interesting as we get older.  Not in a bad way, but in a good way. My preoccupation in my mind with wondering how the man recognized me caused me to do an "old lady thing" when I got home.  After I had washed off my plastic gloves to make sure any virus drops went down the drain, took off the gloves and disposed of them, washed my hands the required length of time of five ABCs, put my vest and mask in the laundry room for the rest of the entire day in case there were "drops" on them, unpacked the groceries and threw away the plastic sacks after grabbing them from the inside bottom instead of the outside to avoid "drops", left the unrefrigerated groceries that were in plastic containers on a remote cabinet for the rest of the day to allow the "drops" to die, washed the outside of the containers of refrigerated food with Colorox wipes, put those food items in the fridge, changed my shoes which was suggested by the CDC officials in case Walmart didn't do a good enough job sanitizing the floor, I finally was able to fix breakfast for myself, having thought all of that time about why the man recognized me.  I scrambled the raw egg and the egg white in a bowl, added the spinach and cheese, all the time thinking about the man.  I made coffee, heard the microwave oven beep that my scrambled omelet was ready.  So I opened the door to the microwave only to find it empty and the bowl with the omelet raw ingredients was still on the cabinet.  I had microwaved nothing.  I had done another old lady thing, as I call them, which always warrants at least a giggle from me and sometime outloud laughter as I laugh at myself.  That was a signal that I had spent enough time on wondering something concerning myself and it jolted me out of self reflection, which often is the devil's temptation to give too much mental attention to one's self.      
   Maybe the incident happened for me as an opportunity for me pray for the man.  I just thought about that.  It was really a supernatural event.  Okay.  I got the message.  The man needs prayers.  Thank you, God, for the reminder. You got my attention!  God knows who he is.  I'll just pray for the mystery man.
   Thank God for having the privilege of belonging to God's Prayer Co-Op, a name that a friend and I called the cooperation between a person, God and us when we know that we are called to pray for someone.  We bring someone into the unity relationship we have with God.  It's like when Jesus prayed that we would be One with other people and with Him just like He and God are One.  When we pray for someone for whom God alerts us to pray, it's cooperation between God, us and the person, a spiritual co-op! 
   God's Co-op is much more important than any thought relating to ourselves.  We can always trust Our Father to bring us back to what is important, praying for each other and praying against the demonic force behind the pandemic or any other catastrophe that is going on in the earth.  That's what His kids do, enjoy the Co-Op's call for prayers.
   There's nothing to be bored about when we are engaged in the call of God's Prayer Co-Op.  It's a full time profession which has magnificent results which bring unspeakable joy to us.
   God bless the mystery man!   I know He will!