Lord & Taylor may soon be history, but there's life (cough, cough) in retail yet

There are a growing number of empty storefronts in Boston. Lots of smaller places - bars, restaurants, and stores - are goners. Lord & Taylor is still open, but barely. It'll be closing soon. I'm doing my bit for the neighborhood shops, but it's just a bit. There are only so many greeting cards I can buy at my favorite gift shop. 

I'm doing some online shopping - with all the walking I do, I manage to go through a couple of pairs of sneaks every few months. And new undies, well, they're a perpetual must. 

There's just not that much I want or need to buy.

Other than COVID-related stuff. Most of that - masks, gloves, hand sanitizer - I purchased early on. I'm guessing that when this all ends, I'll have enough neoprene gloves to hack up a raw chicken pretty much every day for the rest of my life. And the masks? I'll hang on to those just in case Mother Nature or the wet market pangolins have another pandemic up their sleeves.

I have done some recent mask shopping, however. I've gotten a couple of Halloween-ish masks, a few that I'll wear over Christmas, and something that will work for St. Patrick's Day. Which I hope takes me through COVID season. All of them.

Anyway, my masks, gloves, and hand sanitizers have come from local stores, Etsy and other online sources.

But I've yet to see a store devoted to COVID gear. That's apparently because I'm not in King of Prussia, PA. If I were there, I could bop on over to King of Prussia Mall and do my spending at COVID-19 Essentials.

I guess that it's not surprising that some enterprising retailer came up with the idea. Pop up stores are popping up everywhere, so why not one designed to see us through the pandemic?

Masks make up most of the merchandise, including real-fake designer masks (Hermes, Louis Vuitton) - one-tenth the cost of a true designer mask. There are masks with mouth zippers so you can eat, drink, and smoke more easily - and give a full tongue-out raspberry to someone who's not wearing a mask. There are masks that are built in to a hoodie, which might come in pretty handy this winter. (If my mother were alive, I would have gotten her one of these for her upcoming birthday.)

And then there gems like this somewhat kinky one:

For those who want everything to be bespoke, you can customize masks.

Hand sanitizers are on sale, of course. As are touchless thermometers. 

And for those who are concerned about the mask equivalent of bad breath, the store sells lavender and mint mask spray. 

They also sell COVID-related paraphernalia, like a device that lets you grasp a door handle without having to touch it with your bare-naked hand. Useful if you run short on neoprene gloves, I guess.

COVID-19 is a small chain, with a couple of other outlets in NJ and one in Miami. 

The owner, Erik Markowitz, recognizes (and, in fact, hopes) that his business will be a short-term one.

“Buy a mask and put me out of business. The sooner I go out of business, the better.” (Source: Philly Mag)

Couldn't agree more.  

I'm just happy to see that, at least in King of Prussia, there's life (cough, cough) in retail yet.