Busted Thermometres
BY ERIC CHASE ANDERSON
Francis Bacon, who is generally credited with inventing the scientific method, borrowed an existing word to describe a profound transformation. When lots of individual things shift up a level into a single, bigger thing, he referred to this change as the measure.
In the current epidemic, my measure-moment came not when my brother, the doctor—the former Air Force major who is now a senior leader in the V.A. medical system—telephoned to warn me of what he was seeing, of what he feared the country was in for, urging caution and vigilance, especially since I lived in New York City.
My measure-moment was when my corner market closed.
It’s almost hard to remember now, four months later, but the first official advisory we had was about disinfecting touched things. Including what we touched things with, of course—our hands. Soap could supposedly do the job, but I had an electric kettle that boiled water very quickly and, when bringing anything new into the apartment, would place everything in the bathtub and just pour boiling water over it. This didn’t seem particularly strange. Even after I broke my first thermometer.
Without getting too worked up about it, I had begun taking my temperature each day. Since I was soon carrying around large amounts of boiling water, a splash of it to sterilize my thermometer seemed natural. It was a stupid idea, and the thermometer broke with a soft plink.
The replacement thermometers for sale on Amazon I didn’t like at all. For some reason, I couldn’t bring myself to buy one of those digital things. I wanted my old, reliable, familiar oral thermometer. The kind I’d had since college. Finally, I found the exact model at a scientific supply business in North Carolina, which obviously sold primarily to schools, since their website had tiny lab coats, Bunsen burners, and frogs preserved in formaldehyde.
My replacement thermometer arrived. I went on taking my temperature each day, working on various illustrations, and disinfecting things in the tub with boiling water.
Maybe it was the kind of New Yorker I had become. For years, whenever I took the subway, on reaching sidewalk level a low-key awareness of mild toxicity would remain: You were just on the train, my mind would tell me, don’t touch your face until you’ve washed your hands. A need to disinfect seemed familiar, even humdrum.
Yet, trouble was obviously growing all around. In short bits of video and in health warnings. In the huge uptick in audible sirens, which every New Yorker could tell were not police sirens. Life was undergoing some dreadful process. But the people I actually saw didn’t seem different. Generally, they didn’t believe the worst-case reports. “Things work out,” I heard one woman say. “They always do.” And no one was wearing masks yet.
Throughout that first month, my corner market remained absolutely normal. Panicked customers had not stormed through and swept it bare. Ordinary proportions of everyday items, neatly organized, remained on the shelves.
It was in this seemingly still-normal phase, just after masks became mandated by the Governor, that I broke my second thermometer.
I was getting so accustomed to taking my temperature that I had casually stuck the thermometer in my shirt pocket before planning to wash it. I stooped to pick up some crumbs off the tiny kitchen’s floor, and out the new thermometer slipped. It made almost exactly the same soft plink it had the first time I broke it.
Since I knew exactly where to find my favourite thermometer, I immediately ordered a replacement.
When this next one arrived, I had learned that cardboard itself was a poor carrier of the virus. So, I was aware of not wanting to turn the box my thermometer arrived in to mush with boiling water. I was going to wrap it in twine and put it out for recycling–the proper New York thing, which I did. Later, I reached over to take my temperature and couldn’t find the thermometer. It took me an hour to locate. After recycling the cardboard, I had put all the wrapping in the freezer, so I could recycle it on plastic day. My new thermometer never made it out of the bubblewrap. I took out the frozen-solid instrument and hoped that a few hours in the ambient apartment temperature would bring it back to normal. But after a few seconds, I heard that familiar soft plink of another broken thermometer.
A few days after this, on the trip I didn’t know would be my final visit to my corner market for nine weeks, the couple who owned the place (they give me a bottle of red wine every Christmas) were ringing up my purchases and the wife suddenly said, “Oh my God” right in the middle of it.
I didn’t know why she said it. I still don’t. But it didn’t have an inconsequential sound. Under ordinary circumstances, I would have asked her if something was wrong. But it was the masks. I wasn’t used to them yet. They seemed to erect a second barrier, beyond cloth, and introduce an unfamiliarity and hesitancy.
The next day, my corner market’s metal security shutters were down. The interior was dark. A piece of paper taped to the door read “CLOSED DUE TO COVID.” The coin-operated horse ride for toddlers, the gumball machine, the shelf where people left free books . . . everything that should have normally been outside could be seen, dimly, crammed inside. It was a desolate discovery. The blind optimism of the prior weeks seemed feckless. Despite the mild April weather, it felt cold out.
Here was the measure. Many individual points had finally resolved into a single, human truth.
A few days later, my third replacement thermometer arrived. Hopefully the last I’ll need. But I can’t help wondering what they must think of the person up north who keeps ordering that same damn thermometer, one at a time.
ERIC CHASE ANDERSON is an illustrator whose work has appeared in movies, magazines, and books—including, most recently, Maria Semple’s Today Will Be Different, published by Little, Brown & Co. Anderson is the author of Chuck Dugan is AWOL, a novel for young readers. He grew up in Texas, attended college in Washington, D.C., and has lived in New York City for years.