Social Distancing & new “AT-RISK” Hours

Good afternoon from Butler & Bailey Market.

I hope everyone is adapting to the new normal!  It has sure been an interesting week!  At the store, we are getting our legs back under us, and I feel like we have established a very good pace with our adjusted store hours as well as being closed two days a week.  Those were tough decisions, and I really appreciate all the positive feedback we have received from you concerning those decisions!

I want you to know our present circumstances at the store are turning positive.  We are getting our trucks in with relative consistency, and it looks like supplies are going to continue to improve moving forward.  It certainly helps us to control this by limiting our hours.  One of us usually spends every day on the phone procuring things from all over the Southeast, and we are having success.  I think the biggest thing that will be missing for a while is anything that says “antibacterial” on it.  Otherwise, we continue to get a pretty good supply of paper products, as well as everything else.

I guess the new trend in everyday life is going to be social distancing.  While this may be a problem for some, anyone that knows me well would probably agree that I am an expert in this.  I could probably teach a class at Harvard about it.  Thankfully, society is finally catching up to me, after I have felt so left out for the past fifty-three years.

If you are new to this trend, I can make some suggestions to you that I have developed over a lifetime:

• Get yourself a lawn mower, a weed eater, a shovel, and a rake. These things can keep you busy for hours, they are good exercise, they are one person tools, and your yard will look better.
• Another thing I can suggest is a skateboard, once again, a one-person thing, good exercise and so far I have only broken one arm doing it.  We have ramps scattered all over our house and yard if you need a place to do it.
• Fishing is another great idea.  I try to go every free moment I have.  It’s probably not great physical exercise, unless you are wading in a stream but mentally, it cures most any distress I have experienced.  I don’t know if Josh has had any time to make any this week, but the best snack you can take fishing would be our smoked bologna, a bottle of hot sauce, some saltine crackers, and your favorite beverage.
• If you are not into the outdoors, look around your house.  Some of you probably have a piano or guitar that you haven’t touched in quite a while.  Dust those off and learn a new song.  The internet is full of tutorials on about any song you might want to learn.  I watched a movie about the Beatles the other night, so I pulled out my guitar and tried to learn “Let It Be” by them.  I absolutely suck at playing guitar but, if you are practicing social distancing, no one will know.
• Painting is another thing you could do.  My dad painted a lot.  Matter of fact, many of you have told me you have paintings that he did.  He seemed to be good at social distancing also, which is probably where I got it from.  I have tried painting, and it would fall under the same category as my ability to play guitar, so I didn’t get that attribute from him.
• Another weird thing I do is write handwritten notes to people on a pretty regular basis.  People really appreciate a handwritten note!  Think of someone you want to affirm and write them a note.  I think the U.S. mail is still open, and people generally go to the mailbox by themselves, so this would fall under the guidelines.
• I have also heard the last couple of weeks that people have discovered that big shiny piece of furniture in their kitchen can also be used to cook food.  Now would be a great time to start cooking again.  Maybe start with a frozen pizza or some pasta and expand from there.  Our meat supplies are in good shape, so the sky is the limit on what you might try to create.
• Last, but not least, read a book.  I don’t know how long this social distancing is going to last, but some of my favorite really long books would include The Holy Bible by God, Pillars Of The Earth by Ken Follett, Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, and Agony and Ecstasy by Irving Stone.  A shorter one that I just read is The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion.  I really enjoyed it, and it is a pretty quick read.

I hope some of these suggestions will help you cope with the coming days of social distancing.  I have been doing it all my life and can tell you it’s not so bad.

Getting back to store business, I want to remind you that our store hours are from 9:00 am until 7:00 pm.  We also will be closed on Wednesdays and Sundays.  I know these changes are hard to get used to, but please do your best to plan your shopping based on these hours.

We are not doing any curbside service or delivery at this time.  We have had a lot of calls about this and if anything changes, I will let you know.

One thing I have changed is starting tomorrow, every Saturday and Tuesday, we will open from 8 am until 9 am exclusively for people in the high-risk categories to shop.  We have had a lot of calls about this, so this is the plan we put in place.  Please let anyone know that falls in this category that 8 to 9 on Saturdays and on Tuesdays will be dedicated exclusively to them for shopping.  If you do not fall in this category, please help us support this initiative by waiting until 9 am to shop.

Once again, I think we will all get through this as long as we continue to practice patience, understanding, and respect to one another.  I will continue to keep you updated with any changes and look forward to the day we are back to business as usual!

Thanks for letting us be a part of your community,

Tom Butler