{"id":43884,"date":"2025-04-05T00:01:37","date_gmt":"2025-04-05T07:01:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=43884"},"modified":"2026-06-05T08:48:34","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T08:48:34","slug":"in-2020-i-washed-the-potatoes-with-soap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/in-2020-i-washed-the-potatoes-with-soap\/","title":{"rendered":"I Confess. In 2020, I Washed the Potatoes. With Soap"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"sanitizing-mail-during-pandemic\"<\/a>
I opened and sanitized the mail on the hood of my car before bringing it into the house during covid. Jon was still alive to keep me company during the pandemic shut-down — so was his subscription to Chess Life\u00a0 magazine. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

It was April, 2020. The coronavirus was sending people to the hospital by the tens of thousands. It wouldn’t be long before the refrigerated morgue trucks would be lining up outside the hospitals. Covid-19 was everywhere. It could get you. People were afraid.<\/p>\n

My memory of the pandemic year — the fear it engendered — has faded. It’s a little like a memory of childbirth — you remember giving birth, but you don’t remember the pain.<\/p>\n

In 2020, I Washed the Potatoes — With Soap<\/strong><\/h5>\n

And so, lately I’d forgotten how anxious we all felt during the covid months — until I came across an old post in which I confessed that I was soaping down the groceries as they came into the house.<\/p>\n

I’m not kidding. I washed the apples. I washed the potatoes. I washed the romaine<\/em>.<\/p>\n

We were avoiding shops and stores. We were getting our food delivered — but how safe was that food, I wondered? Had the cheerful — brave — delivery person breathed his covid-19 germs on it?<\/p>\n

Radical measures were called for. And in my case, washing down the fruits and vegetables that arrived at our door was not too radical. If a twenty-second wash was good for the hands, a twenty-second wash must be good for the food we ate.<\/p>\n

The pandemic experts were saying that there was no evidence that the corona virus was borne on food. But I didn’t believe them. How is the slick skin of an apple different from the slick surface of a railing or a doorknob? Why can\u2019t the virus spread to the next person when an infected shopper picks up an apple at the grocery store and puts it back in the bin?<\/p>\n

\"In-2020-I-Washed-the-Potatoes-With-Soap\"<\/a>
Everything got sanitized as it came into the house during the pandemic — even the potatoes. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The food experts were also warning against using soap on your fruits and vegetables, as soap could irritate the gastro-intestinal tract and even cause symptoms resembling coronavirus infection.<\/p>\n

But I wasn’t listening.<\/p>\n

I was washing the bananas. I was washing the apples. I was washing the potatoes.\u00a0I was washing the romaine lettuce.<\/p>\n

And I don\u2019t mean rinse the lettuce in cold water. I mean sink it for the prescribed twenty seconds in a tub of warm water and dishwashing liquid. Agitate. Rub. Then rinse in cold water so Jon doesn\u2019t notice that the lettuce has wilted a bit since he last saw it.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of the lettuce was a little slippery when I made the salad tonight,\u201d Jon said over dinner.<\/p>\n

\u201cI washed it with dish soap,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

I was sheepish, but only a little.<\/p>\n

Jon did not scold. He took to indulging my microbe phobia. He knew he’d be locked down in this house with me for weeks, and he was picking his battles. Cabin fever was a thing during the pandemic. A little soap in the salad? He let it pass.\u00a0A few days later, when I dunked the baby potatoes in their dish soap bath, I was careful to give them a good rinsing.<\/p>\n

Incoming groceries weren’t the only items that got the sanitizing treatment back in the day. I once slathered an envelope with sanitizer for twenty seconds before mailing it to my daughter — just in case I was exhaling coronavirus microbes and they were mean and tough enough to survive the three-day trip to Christina\u2019s mailbox.<\/p>\n

As for incoming mail — it got opened and sanitized on the hood of my car before it came into the house. That led to a habit that I have to this day. On my way into the house from the mailbox, I stop at the hood of my car, sort the mail and toss the spam into the recycling bin before it has a chance to come inside and clutter up the house.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Need a distraction from the weirdness that is our life right now?\u00a0 \u00a0Go to \u201cAt Tuolemne \u2014 Celebrating Getting Born.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0Or\u00a0\u201cGray Hairs, Wrinkles. And Kids Who Won\u2019t Stop Growing Up.\u201d<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"sanitizing-mail-during-pandemic\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It was April, 2020. The pandemic was underway and you couldn’t be too careful about what you let into your house, including your groceries. Which is why I washed the potatoes, with soap.\u00a0 Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48566,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,41],"tags":[2623,34,2969,82,2229,2970,2185,2971],"class_list":["post-43884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-a-case-of-the-human-condition","category-sheltering-at-home-chronicles","tag-covid","tag-dont-miss","tag-microbes","tag-on-the-funny-side","tag-pandemic","tag-pandemic-shutdown","tag-social-distancing","tag-washing-potatoes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43884"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43884\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48568,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43884\/revisions\/48568"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}