A Story About the Continued Comedic Aspects of Living Through a Pandemic
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At the beginning of a pandemic, the restrictive measures put in place to keep citizens safe appear temporary. It feels as though there’s a light (possibly UV) at the end of the seemingly short tunnel. As the internet memes have made clear, the governmental asks are simply that citizens sit on their couches and watch Netflix (or the 100 episodes of House Hunters International one has recorded on their TV), and this is a pretty simple request when compared to the heavy lifting done by past generations (e.g., fighting in wars, surviving prior to the industrial revolution). The most complicated thing about the request to stay at home, is really whether a person chooses to use a regular or a heated blanket to keep comfortable while they lounge. As the number of days in quarantine draw on though, it’s natural to realize that there might be more to the sitting on the couch thing than one originally anticipated. Let’s explore this further in, “The Virus – Part Two”.
On what felt like the morning of my ninth year in quarantine, I decided to roll myself out of bed burrito-style, using the blankets to form a very effective tortilla. I had done a quick hazard assessment, and concluded that the risk was low (as my bed was relatively low to the ground), and the probability of fun was high (as I really had nothing going on at that point). As I executed the roll, I imagined that I looked as graceful as an Olympic-gymnast and as delicious as a freshly prepared burrito from the Chipotle Mexican Grill.
After completing my primary “to-do” for the day, I headed into the kitchen to prepare my quarantine breakfast. I had been trying to go to the grocery store only once a week (and spend a Guinness-record-breaking short amount of time inside) which meant I had to be as organized as a new mother of triplets and have every single one of my meals decided on for the week prior to heading to the store. My objective was that each meal achieved the delicate balance of being delicious, but also had a nutrient density such that it could support me in executing my extremely important responsibilities such as burrito-rolls. As I reviewed my menu for the day that was plastered on the fridge, I realized that I had made a gut-wrenching error. I had somehow missed including Thursday (the entire day!) on my meal planning schedule, and now I was going to have to come up with something ad hoc. I decided to turn on a real musical jammer, “Space Jam” to help get my mental juices flowing. The song played in the background as I bounced from cupboard to cupboard, scouring every shelf hoping to uncover long-forgotten about ingredients in some sort of secret stash. Every one of my senses felt heightened in that moment, especially my vision. I felt like I could see into the cupboard without even opening the door. That feeling could have stemmed from misinterpreting the hazy coating on my contact lenses as I had accidentally fallen asleep in them, but it’s hard to say. What I do know for sure is that that my effort-level was extreme in trying to respond to the Quad City DJ’s’ question of, “Hey you, whatcha gonna do?”.
Unfortunately, though my commitment level was at an unreal high, the results of my kitchen search weren’t great. “What can I make with 1 chocolate chip and a frozen banana?!” I thought to myself. As I was racking my head for an idea other than a pitiful single ant on a frozen log, I remembered that I had cereal hidden at the very back of one of my cupboards (and had avoided diving this deep in the initial quest). I had purchased it a few months back when all of the Instagram influencers had been talking about how awesome cereal was. It was on one of the upper shelves, so I leapt onto the counter, and lunged my body towards the back of the cupboard to retrieve it. I had to place my right hand on the top of the cupboard to balance myself and quickly realized that I should probably add dusting to my quarantine to-do list, as what felt like 25 years of dust wrapped itself around my body and attempted to keep me away from the delicious bite-size wheat products. I remained strong and determined though, and somehow managed to extract the cereal boxes from their secret storage location despite being in the middle of a nefarious dust tornado sent from the depths of the underworld.
I shook the boxes to get a feel for how much cereal was left in each. My extremely scientific assessment resulted in an estimate of one-quarter of a bowl of Raisin Bran, and one-third of a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch. I stared at the options in front of me in hopes of creating a Master Chef-type creation from the mini toast and bran mixture. I considered putting one piece of Raisin Bran on a piece of Cinnamon Toast and eating that over and over until I ran out of toasts. I would then add the raisins to the one chocolate chip and frozen banana mixture and have a frozen banana-popsicle type delicacy.
After a few seconds of pondering, I realized that though I did have an abundance of time at that very moment, it wasn’t yet at the point of being unlimited, so I needed to come up with a more time-efficient option. The winning choice ended up being a combination of Raisin Bran and Cinnamon Toast Crunch in one cereal bowl. It was incredibly innovative if I do say so myself. I poured the cereals into the bowl as artfully as I could, both at the same time (one in each hand), so that it created a beige monochromatic double waterfall effect. I then took a picture of my incredible creation and posted it on Instagram with the hashtag #thrivinginthenewnormal. I knew I had 10,000 likes coming right up with that bad boy.
Next on my to-do list for the day was a Zoom meeting with my boss, George. We had a daily ritual of connecting virtually, and I very much appreciated the opportunity to actually talk to another human being. Every morning I made sure I logged on first, and would sit as close as I possibly could to my camera so that it was focused in one part of my face (e.g., my eyes). I would stay this way until he joined the meeting and then make the same joke about the camera being “zoomed” in a little too far, even for Zoom! I would usually mix it up throughout the week and alternate between my nose, eyes, lips, and forehead. That day felt like a good day to feature my nose.
George’s photo icon suddenly appeared in the guest list. Before I could get my regular greeting out, he shouted, “Good morning Paislee!”, with far more enthusiasm than usual. His video appeared slightly out of focus, which I quickly realized might have been due to the fact that I was so close to the camera. I backed up to a more appropriate viewing distance, and saw that he was wearing a fake nose, glasses, and moustache.
I almost fell out of my chair at his effort to make a joke. “Wow, what a beautiful moustache you’ve grown!” I finally managed to get out.
He looked quite proud as he said, “You know I pride myself on being fair. You make me laugh every morning, so I figured the least I could do was try to make you laugh once.”
My heart swelled at his demonstration of care. “George, you are truly the best; thank you!”
We forged ahead with our important business, and to my surprise, he left his costume on for the entire meeting. As we signed off our extremely productive melding of the minds, he peered over the top of his glasses/nose/moustache combo and said, “Paislee, though I do appreciate your attempt to make me laugh everyday with your Zoom joke, I think the ball is now in your court to get a little more creative…”
“Challenge accepted!” I promised.
Prior to commencing the solitary portion of my workday from my home-office desk, I decided it was essential to quickly sanitize my work area and myself. I should mention that the pandemic had completely skewed my perception of time, so the process was short relatively speaking as I now considered time as century-long units. I used a Lysol wipe (aka a Pandemic-era brick of gold), and methodically wiped down my desk and computer equipment. My incredibly effective (patent pending) virus-knockout method entailed long swipes of the desk from front to back, until every portion was covered in the sweet fragrance of Lysol (aka a death omen for the Coronavirus), and wiping each individual key on the keyboard. For good measure, I decided to spray some disinfectant spray into the air just to kill any lingering virus molecules that may have been trying to maliciously take up residence. As I sprayed, I visualized an incredible bubble-type barrier being created around my desk and myself that would protect us from the devil-like virus. Throughout the quarantine period I had also been getting more in touch with spiritual-type concepts, and visualization was one that had really spoken, or should I say appeared, to me. I then grabbed one of my trusty Wet Wipes, and wiped myself from face to toe. You better believe I was not taking any chances.
After my extremely effective sterilizing routine (I’m still waiting for the World Health Organization to request to use it in their official guidance to the citizens of the world), I was amazingly productive for the remainder of the day; well, as productive as one can be when they are essentially stranded on a solitary island of loneliness and despair. My only break in the day was at lunch, when I allowed myself to do my usual check-in with my go-to pals in the scientific community, Google and Twitter, to get a status update regarding a COVID-19 treatment or vaccine, and inquire if my assistance was required. There didn’t appear to be any concrete news at that moment, so instead I practiced my visualization skills by grabbing my pen, envisioned that it was full of liquid that would kill the Coronavirus, and pretended to inject it into my arm. I realize that might sound a bit weird, but that’s what living through a pandemic will do to a person. I have to admit that there were certainly days where the lack of immediate progress in this area had sent me into a spiral of hopelessness, so I had limited my check-ins to once a day.
As I concluded my workday, and congratulated myself for contributing a significant amount of value to my employer (the amount akin to the value that a NASA astronaut provides the world), I decided to do a workout to continue pushing my mental and physical limits. Though my professional-athlete style bed exit earlier in the day had gotten my blood and mental juices flowing, I knew I had to push myself even further to be the best I could be.
I had been working through a series of workouts on YouTube by a relatively popular fitness “expert”, who had recently created a beginner series. Though I had been working out on a relatively regular schedule prior to the pandemic (and in my eyes was considered a VIP at my local gym), I found the beginner workouts extremely difficult. When I was at my weakest mentally, I actually questioned whether I was even remotely fit. That day I was trying her “ab series”, which in hindsight may have been a bit ambitious as the early morning “burrito roll” execution did cause some ab strain; however, hindsight is 20/20, and the pain was about to start. The routine started out relatively easy, and by easy I mean the fitness influencer had simply asked us students to sit on a mat and breathe in and out, while thanking themselves for getting to this part in the day. I always appreciated a good thankfulness to oneself, so I was really enjoying the workout at that point. Next came a circuit that I don’t know if I could ever be prepared for in my current lifetime: 40 tricycle ab-fliparoos, 35 side plank jumps, 95 centipede crawls, finishing with 50 murderous side twister tornado hurricanes. I actually can’t remember the exact names because I blacked out due to the pain, but you get the point. That said, I have to admit that I didn’t quit. Let me tell you – I sure as heck wanted to, but I didn’t. I focused on the inner torment that COVID-19 had caused me, and used it to drive me forward or twisting or upside down or whatever the exercise was requiring me to do. And even though I had physically perished by the end, my spirit was more than alive.
As I was cleansing my yoga mat and having a funeral for my muscles, I got a video call through WhatsApp. I immediately panicked, as sweat was still dripping off my body, my face was flushed an extremely unnatural shade of red, and make-up was smeared all down and across it. All in all, I looked like a melting raspberry popsicle that had been dropped in dirt. I saw the caller was my Aunt Tara, who I hadn’t talked to in months.
“Mother of pearl!” I said out loud. I knew I had to get the call, because you just couldn’t turn your back on people in COVID, even if they could be described as, well, let’s just call it a little high maintenance.
“Hi Aunt Tara!” I tried to summon up as much joy and positivity I possibly could.
“Paislee! I was just thinking about you and felt I needed to see your face. How are you? Are you okay? You look a little unwell. Do you have COVID?”
“Hi Auntie Tara. I’m absolutely fine – I just finished working out. How are you?”
“Oh, your Uncle and I are doing well. We’re following the news very closely. Considering ourselves COVID-experts now. We’re staying active and walking about the neighbourhood lots. How about you? Have you picked up any new hobbies in quarantine?”
“Hmm…not really, other than crying into my towel every night after I shower.”
“Well, some say crying can be very good for the skin. Very cleansing,” she replied without missing a beat.
“That’s what Google told me too. I’ve also become an expert in meal planning and fitness, so all in all things are going very well.”
“That’s good, Paislee. I’m glad to hear. I just wanted to check-in because I felt a moral obligation as your Aunt.”
“Well, your moral obligation has been fulfilled, Aunt Tara. Talk to you soon!”
After such an uplifting phone call, I felt inspired to rearrange my bedroom to give myself a bit of a change of scenery, and really, there wasn’t much else to do. I stared at the room for a few minutes, imagining how Queen Elizabeth would design and style it. I wasn’t having much luck getting inside her head (which wasn’t surprising given that she appeared to be a stoic vault), so I rested one of my headbands on top of my head like a crown and tried the visualization approach again. Sure enough, it hit me that she would want the bed facing the window so the light could shine upon her upon glorious self every morning. It wasn’t a design choice that I would have made myself; however, a pandemic really forces you to consider other perspectives in your decision making.
I quickly realized that moving my bed into the optimal sun-touching spot would require moving every other piece of furniture around in my room, and that due to the pandemic, the only way I could complete the mission was by doing it myself.
“Dangit…” I intentionally said out loud in the hopes of feeling like I was having a conversation with another human being.
I grabbed my notebook and pen and starting methodically mapping out the room changeover on the page. Well, it was more like a bunch of squares and arrows that probably wouldn’t have made sense to anyone but me, but it had served its purpose: I was ready to execute the plan.
My workouts had been intended to keep my physical and emotional strength up throughout the quarantine period, and let me tell you, I sure needed both types of strength to get through that room changeover on my own. Sweat dripped from and into every crevice on my body as I pushed and pulled the furniture from both ends. I had never been one to name my furniture, but that day a number of names beginning with 4-letter words came to my mind very organically throughout the process. At one point, I found myself in a precarious (but not life threatening) position between the wall and my dresser. At that exact moment, I felt truly alone. I did. I even thought to myself, “if I can’t get enough strength to get myself out of this chaotic maze of furniture, I will perish of sadness. Just pure sadness”. However, just as I had with my workout earlier in the day, I forced myself to keep pushing. I actually pushed the dresser enough that it fell right over, but it was better than the alternative. After a few hours, I finally accomplished the task. As I sat admiring my newly designed room (which included my headband placed on my headboard horizontally so that it appeared as a crown, paying respect to my muse), I felt strong, sad, happy, and lonely all at the same time. It was an emotional mix that seemed to be pretty characteristic of the way I had been feeling throughout the entire time period. There was just no escaping that living through a pandemic was hard. You know what, it wasn’t just hard but fricking mother of pearl hard. The only thing I knew for sure was that you had to be strong, and use every experience of demonstrating strength to catapult forward into more exhibitions of strength, until enough strength had flooded the world such that the end of the pandemic arrived. That’s not to say that strength wasn’t going to be necessary in a post-COVID world, but let’s focus on one step at a time. Though I felt that strength was a key part of getting through the pandemic in one piece, how that strength was fueled was multi-faceted and more complicated than a daily workout. At that moment, I knew that I needed to rest and replenish for the next weeks to come, so I settled onto my bed to watch “The Crown” on Netflix while wearing my headband crown.
Paislee's Humorous Happenings 