Marooned On An Island Of My Own House: Important Questions
/Hello everyone! Once again it is I, still stuck inside.
With the Covid-19 lockdown comes many Changes, and with Changes come Questions, and here come some Questions I have Faced So Far.
There was quite a good paragraph here about the passage of time and how lockdown affects us emotionally, but I deleted it by accident and now I can’t remember how it went. Possibly for the best.
Anyway - this is a list of:
Questions About Rules & Etiquette (In These Uncertain Times).
1. How many things do you have to need before you can go to the supermarket, when all you actually need is beer?
YES AND HOW MANY TIMES CAN YOU TRY NOT TO BREATHE / ON THE MASK-WEARING CHECKOUT CASHIER
As part of Slowing the Spread and Flattening the Curve and generally not blasting coronavirus all over your neighbours, limiting your trips to the supermarket is of the utmost importance. We have learnt that you should only make Necessary Trips for Essential Items.
SJ and I are Good Citizens and Respect The Bubble (this is not sarcasm, we Are and we Do) and so we don’t make unnecessary supermarket forays but boy oh boy, we ran out of beer on Wednesday and neither of us really intended to live in a Dry Household for any period of time.
And yet, beer is not technically essential, and we can’t bring ourselves to be Those People who go to the supermarket during a pandemic because they have run out of beer. So we eagerly build out our shopping list and every so often one of us will say hopefully to the other, “Is it enough?”
And then we will look at it, and together we will sadly say, “No.”
We don’t know how many things is enough. Is it ten? Fifteen? Twenty?
Help us, we are so thirsty.
2. Is it rude to do your nails on a video call, as long as your video isn’t on?
YES AND WHY DO ALL OF MY COVID-19 QUESTIONS / SOUND LIKE A BOB DYLAN SONG
Nail-painting is one of the few things you can get away with on a long conference call because it’s silent and you can still pay attention to the conversation.
I feel like it sort of is rude, but if nobody can tell you’re doing it… is it really?
LOOK AT THAT SHIT. I AM SO FANCY. IT’S A VICTIMLESS CRIME!
I know some of you are now undoubtedly busy thinking of other things you might like to do on a conference call when the video isn’t on and to that I say: firstly, gross, and secondly, it makes more of a noise than you think it does.
Also the other day I put a picture on instagram of my fancy nails and encaptioned it ‘working from hooooope you like photos of manicures I did on conference calls’ and a client, who I had forgotten followed my personal instagram (why would she do that??) liked it.
Which was nice until I remembered that I had in fact had a conference call with her that very same morning.
EVEN IF THE VIDEO WASN’T ON.
How do you get away with not answering your phone, when everyone knows you’re at home?
One of the few things I dislike about working from home is the assumption that everyone is free, all the time.
I don’t know why this is a thing: nobody is any less busy than they were when we were all tucked neatly away in our offices, Zoom meetings are no less taxing than regular meetings*, and yet for some reason there’s a general assumption that everyone is constantly Around, ready to deal with whatever flight of whimsy has dawned upon your little corporate self.
Mind you I can’t really whinge about this because the other day I rang Mum and got grumpy when she didn’t pick up because where could you possibly be, Mum?! At a fancy party? No, you’re just IN THE GARDEN IGNORING ME.
__
*especially when you’re doing your nails
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Also the other day I heard the Skype ringing notification while I was in the lounge and I RAN to get the call in case it was important (spoiler alert: no) and I hit the corner of the couch and fell on the floor and SJ was like “…are you OK” and I could see in his eyes he meant mentally.
IT WAS THIS LOOK BUT ON A PERSON. CONCERNED, JUDGMENTAL, AND SLIGHTLY AFRAID
What makes someone a side-eye neighbour, not a smile and wave neighbour?
Roland and SJ and I have been going for lunchtime walks, strolling around the neighbourhood and trying to remember not to touch anything. Today I picked up a large seed-pod from the pavement and tore it to bits and threw the seeds in people’s gardens and I suppose if I get coronavirus we will all know why.
It will be angry homeowners taking biohazardous revenge on me for planting flax in their herbaceous borders.
On these walks we pass a lot of people who are also taking the air, and they are evenly split into two groups:
Smile-and-wave neighbours, who cheerfully cross the road to avoid you (didn’t think I’d ever be writing about that as a good thing) and give you a little hullo wave;
Side-eye neighbours, who refuse to make direct eye contact and instead peek suspiciously in your direction, as if the purpose of your walk is to give them - specifically them - a hearty dose of covid-19. Why do they do this? I genuinely don’t understand. Why would anybody be out to get anybody?
I read an article the other day comparing the Covid-19 lockdown to the Christchurch earthquakes; the author banged on for some time about resilience and community spirit and to a certain extent yes, but also I don’t remember anyone post-quake peeking at me as if I had an aftershock hidden up my sleeve and was about to throw it at them.
It is almost as though these people remember seeing you leaving the supermarket last week with two dozen beers and no essential supplies.
STOP JUDGING ME BOB! I ALSO BOUGHT LIKE THREE THINGS OF VEGETABLE
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*Disclaimer: we did not actually do the thing with the two dozen beers and no essential supplies. covid is serious business!