It’s 50 degrees and the March sun is shining. I put on my water-resistant cross country ski gloves, take hold of a shopping cart and pass through the automatic door. I am at my local supermarket. I’ve already procured ample supplies of my favorite specialty food items from the co-op grocery stores where I usually shop, but I am now on a mission to secure the more mundane articles on my shopping list. I enter the store cautiously, as if expecting some unknown assailant to jump me from behind. Having been warned of impending shortages of critical items, I casually drift over to the household supplies aisles, hoping not to be too obvious in my search for toilet paper.

The shelves of paper goods are emptier than I have ever seen them, but there are still some packages of the coveted personal hygiene items. I take some — but not all — and add them to my cart. Next stop is cleansers and disinfectants. I already have some wipes at home, which is lucky, as the shelves here are barren. For a moment I consider choosing some baby wipes to shore up my supply. But the image of some young mother needing them for her baby’s bottom stops me. I choose a disinfecting spray instead. Feeling secure in my stash of infection-fighting agents, I move on.

The store is not crowded, but there are plenty of shoppers. Nothing is different, yet an air of the surreal pervades. What is it, I wonder, as I reach for a gallon of milk, that is so unsettling? My mental shopping list reels off in my head as I roll on. Other carts wheel past — mothers with their toddlers, fathers with their lists, whole families sticking closely together. I pass a man in his motorized cart and an elderly woman looking confused. Has she misplaced her list or forgotten to make one? Or is she simply wandering around looking for inspiration?

I am suddenly struck by the source of my discomfort. The store is silent. Beyond the rustling of shoppers, cashiers, and baggers, I can scarcely detect the sound of a human voice. The families are not talking, no children begging for candy — “Pleeeease, Mom!” — no couples quibbling about cereal, no neighbors chitchatting in the aisles. No one in a rush, and no one making eye contact. Everyone is like me, wandering slowly in a near fugue state, shell-shocked with the dawning reality that this trip to the store might be our last for a while.

Now, eager to exit this pre-apocalyptic scene, I head to the checkout and unload my cart. I have always brought my own bags to avoid single-use plastic (this was before the prohibition on reusable bags). The cashier is working alone, so I do the bagging myself. When she is done ringing up my items, she moves to help me. Before I can stop her, she has loaded a double plastic bagful and handed it to me.

Without thinking, I express some mild annoyance and she offers to re-bag using one of mine. I decline, as the plastic bags would not be usable for anyone else.

I pay with my credit card so that no one has to handle cash and I leave the store with an uneasy feeling.

Loading my groceries into my car, I reflect on the experience. I, along with everyone else in that store, was operating in the panic of the unknown. The situation is new, but we know something terrible has happened, is happening, is about to happen. We don’t have rules for how to behave, so we proceed with trepidation.

And the cashier? That brave woman who, for a small hourly wage, faces the general public — and their germs — all day long? What of her?

I slam the trunk closed, grab my cart and stride back to the store. After stacking the cart along with the others, I find my checkout lane and the cashier, who is standing idle for a moment while a shopper fiddles with the credit card machine. I approach her.

“I just wanted to apologize for complaining about the plastic bags. I appreciate the fact that you’re here. You’re doing a great job.”

She smiles and thanks me, and I could tell it was an apology that was certainly due.

And I headed back to my car with an epiphany: Being in a panic is no excuse for bad manners. Even in a pandemic, you can still be polite.

Nicole Saginor lives in Cornish.