Quarantine and cookies

Today is Wednesday, March 18th, 2020. I only know that because I looked at my watch, 4 times, because I forgot to actually read it the first three times. I’m not sure what day of quarantine this is. 4 or 5 or 47. Life is becoming a blur. The days are all the same. I found out that St Patrick’s day has come and gone and I didn’t get to wear green except for around my gills. I’ve gotta go out to get medicine later. I hope the building are still standing, but mostly I hope the ice cream isn’t all gone. Cookies wouldn’t be bad either.

      To add to an already wonderful event, I got sick on Saturday with a bad sinus infection. I get them about this time every year but I can tell you, this seems to be the worst one simply because of timing. I checked my temperature about every half hour for the first day and then every hour from then on. I looked on amazon for a thermometer with a holster but haven’t found one I like yet. Normally when I get sinus infections they hit me pretty hard. I think it’s because I’m a male that I always get hit with the extra, extra tough germs. My wife had the same thing a week before me and I’m pretty sure she gave it to me but it obviously used her to strengthen itself before latching on to me. I know this has to be true because not once did she lie around moaning in agony, but I sure did.

Typically when I’ve had this I can still manage to get around some and when people here my raggedy voice they either give sympathy or laugh and ask me to do Darth Vader quotes. During this quarantine it’s been much different. For my business I’ve had to answer the phone quite a few times and as soon as someone hears me say hello, in my hoarse, infected with death sounding voice, they change. I can’t put my finger on what’s going through their minds but I’ve heard two spray Lysol. I’m guessing they sprayed their phones before talking to me more. Some you can tell are holding their phones out away from their face for the rest of the conversation. And the hesitation when asking me questions is borderline hilarious and sad. I have to assure them it’s only a sinus infection or cold and I’ve had no fevers. After I mention no fevers and I check often, they do better. I can understand though because getting sick right now freaked me out a good but also. Before writing this I was writing out my will and goodbyes to my family. You just never know. Of course now that I’m doing better I’m gonna have to amend some of it.

I’ve been keeping up with everything online. Most of you seem to be doing really well and helping your community out the best you can. I think that’s pretty awesome and I applaud you. Listen, I’m doing it now. I scroll some more and, sigh, some of you are gonna be the reason the world eats itself and you should be ashamed. No applauding for you guys. You only get a finger or two. In fact it’s probably some of this behavior that gets us into predicaments like this. I just saw a video of a girl doing a “corona virus challenge” by videoing herself licking a toilet seat in an airplane. I don’t know if it’s real or not but she did lick the seat and that’s good enough for exile. When you cross certain lines you should have to go live on an island somewhere until you can do better. Dumb and gross is not funny when it kills half the population. Or when it makes me have to go shower and brush my teeth. I have a strong stomach and not much bothers me but idiocy is gross. And I know what some of you are thinking, “but Robb, a culling is good and they’re necessary in nature, it’s what keeps species strong and able to thrive.” Well that may be true but it’s not nice so please don’t say that out loud anymore. And Ok, fine, but let’s wait til I’ve lived out my natural life first please. That’s not selfish either, so hush, I’m the only me I have. Perhaps we can start the culling with the people of dumb and gross island. Can we vote on this? Yay? Nay?

     I guess next up would be the preparations we’ve made to be able to stay home for 2 – 4 weeks. Yeah, about that. It turns out I’m a horrible judge about necessary quantities of food per days of needed survival. I was always the guy camping that brought half a bottle of water and a Wendy’s combo (large of course) on my way to go camping or so much food that the animals ordained us as gods, right before they ate us. I screwed up by not being hungry when I went to the store. This is clearly the exact time you need to go to the market hungry. So here I go into the store full, fat and sassy and I thought, a pack of hotdogs will last us for weeks, they’re bun lengths. Luckily my wife is on a different level than me. She plans very well and she didn’t mention (on purpose) that she’d already been to the store and gotten almost everything we needed except for the one thing she asked me to pick up. I’m pretty sure I couldn’t find it, but you know how it is. She also rolls her eyes at me with an expertise most would kill to be able to do. Like, even better than the natural ability of teenage girls and I have several of those so I know.

     To be honest, I am a bit glad I was sick, otherwise I’d have gone through all of our food in two days. You’re never so hungry until you’re not supposed to eat or you need to ration it out. If you’ve ever been on a diet or in a similar situation, you know what I’m talking about. Before diet food is silent, on one however you realize that food can speak. And it’s so loud. “Eat me, you skinny man.” You’ll hear cheeseburgers call out to you and being an ordained by nature food god you have to listen to your children’s pleas. You also know what it’s like to wake up out of a dead sleep and realize you’ve eaten a whole jar of peanut butter, 23 slices of cheese, 4 gogurts, and a half a bottle of wine. It turns out that your subconscious is a sneaky wanker and figured if it got you a tad inebriated, you wouldn’t wake up and the gorging could continue. By the way it was less waking up out of a dead sleep than it was my wife slapping me with a broom to wake me. Apparently she tried to wake me but I nipped at her fingers. There’s a part of her I know that doesn’t believe I was really asleep. I was, I swear! But now I have to chain myself to the bed because I can’t trust my subconscious mind not to take me on a sleep eating and wine binge. Also, and this is really an insignificant side note but, no one trusts me anymore so the “good” snacks and food are now locked up. I’m a prisoner inside my own home. All alone with the growlings of my belly and the voices in my head. Someone please send me some food, and some white noise.

         Overall I believe things are going better than they could be, probably not as bad as some make it out bad bad enough to matter. I went out to the store today to pick up some medicine and most everyone was being pleasant. I ran into a friend I’ve known for 25 years or so and she said she’d been to three stores so far and there was no bread or toilet paper at any of them. An older lady walked up mentioning how there was no bread and wondering where she could find some. We didn’t know but I held up the carton of ice cream in my left hand and told them there was lots and lots of ice cream left. They laughed and I’m pretty sure dismissed me because what I said was dumb and totally unhelpful. I don’t blame them but I went a little more. I suggested to the older lady to check which of her neighbors weren’t at home and to go raid their cupboards. She walked away laughing, but I’m pretty sure she had new afternoon plans and they entailed bread in hand. I said farewell to my friend and then found my way to the cookie aisle which was stocked completely full. I may or may not have gotten a family sized container of double stuffed Oreos.

     Everyone be safe, make good choices, and most of all and more important than all the other crap, be nice to each other. We’ve gone through bad times before, and afterwards we’re always nicer, at least for awhile. Until the newness wears off and we go back to being hateful sad sacks. I understand that life can’t always be ice cream and cookies and that sometimes it has to be bread, milk and toilet paper. But there is a balance that’s better than being one extreme or the other. You just have to find it inside yourself and make it become part of you, for good. There will always be the schmucks and there will always be the polite and kind in this world, no matter what. For now, the cookie aisles are just waiting to be pounced on and I’ve yet to hear of ice cream hoarding. So get get a bag of cookies and a gallon of ice cream and eat it in your toilet paper fort until you’re found and you have to share.

-Most of this is true but there are parts included due to the hallucinations from eating all of the Oreos in one sitting mixed with decongestants.-

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