So here we are, a whole nationful of people being asked to “socially distance” ourselves, in order to fight the Coronavirus.
Some of us are being asked to do even more (or perhaps I should say less) than that. My husband’s doctor, for example, put it to him bluntly: “Just don’t leave the house. For a couple of months.”
This is terrible news.
Not for my husband, of course. Recently retired, his two favorite hobbies are napping, and watching TV. Preferably at the same time.
Which is fine for him. What the doctor doesn’t say is, who is going to go out and comb the stores for hand sanitizer and paper towels? Don’t tell me, I know the answer. Also produce and meats, since I never signed up for Amazon delivery and now it’s too late.
It’s making me realize what a big part of my social life it used to be, going to the supermarket! Bumping wagons with other moms I haven’t seen in a while, commiserating with strangers who also can’t find what they need at the wall-of-exotic-shampoo-flavors. (Mango coconut shampoo? Really? What a waste of a good drink!) Harassing the manager over why the fragile cookie brands are placed so high out of reach that they always fall and break when you try to grab one… you know, good clean fun.
All as gone as the dodo.
It even makes me homesick for the day when my biggest shopping problem was locating enough recyclable bags to bring it all home in. And that was just two weeks ago!
But the folks trying to keep us healthy want us all to “hunker down.” Or is that “bunker down,” because it sometimes feels like we’re in a bunker, waiting for World War III?
It feels like a weird type of blizzard — one with no snow, and no end in sight. At least I don’t still have little kids at home, that I’m expected to entertain…or worse, teach. Because if I were any good at that, I would have been a teacher.
I once tried to run a summer school for the little kids in my neighborhood, when I was still a kid myself. I thought I had enough activities for several weeks. Turns out that after half an hour we had run through them all and the kids kept asking “What’s next?” Talk about panic!
Some schools are sending kids home with reading assignments for the rest of the year. I can just imagine how that’s going to work:
“F. Scott Fitzgerald: Loser? Or Genius? Use specific examples.”
“American History: Is this The End?”
“The Iliad and The Odyssey. Discuss.”
We turn on the TV, only to find that PBS — in complete disregard for a nation of prisoners — is in pledge!
What are we to do? I’m all cooped up with nothing to do but taxes! You know I’ve reached my limit when I tell you that I am actually dusting the bookshelves.
But the most terrifying thing about this hunkering down is what it can do to ordinary, mild-mannered citizens. Ordinarily, my husband is a very sweet-tempered man. And yet, during a patch of bad weather that kept us indoors this past winter, we almost came to blows over which corner of the dining room table was supposed to house the stack of junk mail!
So now I don’t know which to be more worried about: my life, or my marriage.
I keep thinking about all those men who get put under house arrest. Like Paul Manafort or Bill Cosby, before the judge put him in jail instead.
I can’t help thinking that the person it is really a sentence for is the wife.
“Bill, dear, it’s trash night and those cans aren’t taking themselves to the curb.”
Bill silently raises his ankle, showing the ankle monitor.
“Could you give me a hand getting the groceries in from the car? All the soup cans are killing my back.”
He silently shows her the ankle monitor once again.
“And you know the dog needs walking!”
It’s enough to make you commit a heinous crime of your own.
