WELLESLEY FALLS, Mass. It was, for Myra Oehrke, the first night on the town in eighteen months, a dinner for two at L’Endive, a nouvelle cuisine restaurant in this western suburb of Boston. “My husband Hal is a total germophobe,” she says with a rueful expression on her face. “He said he didn’t want to take a chance until we got to ‘zero-COVID,’ but damn it–we’ve got to start living again at some point.”
“Don’t look now, but there’s a virus behind you.”
Assured by the Massachusetts Restaurant Association that the risk of COVID-19 to diners was relatively low, Myra persuaded her husband to come out of his basement “man cave” with a promise that she might–just might–engage in his favorite Saturday night “role-playing” exercise in bed later in the evening. “He’s an accountant, so he likes me to dress up as a naughty IRS auditor. While I don’t like to hear him scream, if that’s what it takes to satisfy him, I’m game on a quarterly basis, which is when estimated tax payments are due.”
“Great to see you–I love what you’ve done with your hair!”
But despite the assurance of the restaurant’s owners that they took every precaution to prevent the spread of the dread disease that has shut down America’s economy for nearly two years, the Oehrkes found an unwanted guest at their table; COVID-21, which unlike its 2019 predecessor knows how to follow diners from a maitre d’s station to their tables.
“COVID-19 is a rather shy, retiring virus,” says Dr. Miriam Lonsdowne of the University of Vermont’s School of Medicine. “COVID-21, on the other hand, likes to ‘work the room,’ going from table to table, slapping people on the back and asking about their kids, how they’re doing, et cetera. It could be the death knell for those dining establishments that are already on life support.”
“I’m afraid we have no tables available at the moment, Mr. . . ah . . . Covid.”
The Center for Disease Control issued a directive earlier this year allowing restaurant patrons to wear a mask upon entering a dining establishment, but allowing them to remove it if necessary to ingest food once they had reached their tables. That advice was declared inoperative yesterday as diners discovered they could no longer stare at their entrees in the hopes that the new strain wouldn’t notice them. “I said to my wife, don’t look up, it’s another virus heading our way–but no, she just happened to glance in its direction,” says Mike Evershevski, who was enjoying a sirloin at Abe & Morty’s Steakhouse a few blocks away. “Now we’re stuck with it at least until dessert and coffee.”