Weekend Plans Post: The Other Side Of Quarantine

One of the consolations of marriage is that if you are, for example, in the middle of a pandemic, you can split efforts and make light work out of rough chores. One person does this, the other person does that. Dishes (washing, putting away), Laundry (sorting, washing, putting away), Groceries (getting, putting away), and so on.

However, if one of the participants is told to distance, then that’s not on the table. I mean, sure. The sick person might be able to put the laundry in the machine or the dishes in the machine, but after they’re washed/dried, you can’t take them upstairs. You can’t put the dishes away.

If one of the joys in your life is making meals, you can’t make meals for two anymore. You’re stuck cooking for yourself. If the other person isn’t crazy about cooking, then they’re stuck making meals that they’re not crazy about making.

Running upstairs in the middle of the day and wordlessly grabbing the other person’s hand and giving it a quick squeeze while they’re in a meeting? That’s something that you can’t do anymore.

And so all of the little things that help get you from this side of the sunrise to that side of the sunset are gone. You’re left with a roommate that you aren’t on speaking terms with (but maybe texting terms with). And you can’t even really fight, if you’re inclined to fight, because that involves breathing at the other person.

Anyway, after 10 days, we decided that we hadn’t had any symptoms and this was seriously driving us nuts and maybe we could go back to sharing our bubble with each other.

And so, now, when I go into work, I do the double mask thing. The cloth mask underneath protects you, the paper mask up over it protects me. We got rubber gloves. Like, really, really GOOD rubber gloves. They’re black, they have good texture on the outside making it easy to grab stuff like pencils, they’re not clunky and so they’re easy to type with, they go on easily… they’re, seriously, high quality gloves. I mentioned this to Maribou when she got them when, I thought, gloves were as tough to get as paper towels or toilet paper. “These are really good gloves! Where did you get them?” “Remember how in the early days of the pandemic, the grocery stores didn’t have toilet paper but the hardware stores did?”, she asked. Well, apparently they’re, erm, specialized gloves for people to use when there is, erm, high risk of contact with… ah… bodily fluids. So she thought to go to the stores that specialized in providing custom to folks interested in such gloves still had them in stock who, presumably, needed them less during a period of social isolation.

So, at work (or running errands), I wear high-quality gloves that I know are specially designed to protect the wearer from biological agents. (And, much like with TP, they’re back in stock. So if you are frustrated by your disposable glove choices, check these out. Just watch out if any particularly mild-mannered acquaintances immediately brighten when they see them.)

And all of this is such a pain in the tuchus, but… it’s less of a pain in the tuchus than doing those 10 days again.

As such, this weekend, we’re going to recover from social distancing.

So… what’s on your docket?

(Featured image is Tiger, mid-scritch. Taken by Maribou.)