The Great Barter of 2020

We still have Covid-19, conspiracy theories, "President" Trump and his cronies trying to Pinky and

the Brain, kids in cages or missing entirely, assholes of the all-lives-matter persuasion, haters of all sorts, anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers, the feds and some states expecting five-year-olds to deal with masking for a full school day when the adults refuse to, blah blah blah, etcetera, ad nauseum.

Yes, 2020 can still die in a hole. 

That said, in my (socially-distanced) circle, we have managed what one of the circle called The Great Barter of 2020, and it's kind of awesome. Some of them are circular. Some of it goes all over the place. Like this:

I brought my mom donuts. She asked me to take a loaf of homemade bread to M. Then M accepted the bread and gave me a gallon of milk that they got from the school's summer lunch program but won't use. 

That's the simple, circular (or equilateral triangular) version of this.

Most of the time it's more complicated but just as cool. 

I made a pasta salad. I shared the recipe on Facebook. Some friends in a different country said they were making it. I gave a small tub of it to my mom. My mom makes bread and gives the loaves out to me and some other neighbors. My kids went through the playroom at grandma's and got rid of the stuff they've outgrown. These are now on a table on my porch along with a few things from Lizzy's cleaning out of her own room. I sent a message to my neighborhood Facebook page saying these were up for grabs. My neighbor and her child made a smoothie stand across the street. We have joint customers who come for a smoothie and leave with books or toys and vice-versa. Another neighbor is holding a taco truck sort of deal in his yard. Everyone masks up when getting books, toys, smoothies, or tacos. 

I'm not letting people into my house - not even my mom - but a friend is in town and needs something printed. She sends it in email and I print it, then we meet on my porch, with masks, six-plus feet apart (it's a big porch). We have had several family holiday meals on said front porch since March. There have been more than a few chats with neighbors on the porch as well, neighbors whom I either didn't know before March or would just nod to when encountered at the mailbox or the dumpster or the school bus stop.

So... while 2020 can still, yes, die in a hole, there are a few good things that have come out of it, at least on a hyperlocal level.

Who would've thought a virus that keeps us apart would bring us together? Especially with the attendant folderol we've attached to it as a country?

But there you have it... the Great Barter of 2020.