This Could Be Worse

Let’s play a game called Quarantine: This Could Be Worse. I’ll go first. There are people who are homeless, who live outside, in cold countries, with little food and no shelter. I’m hanging out in my huge basement apartment in my parent’s three-story home, with lots of food.

There are people who live in actual war zones where bombs go off on a regular basis and they leave the house not knowing if they will come back that night. I met a guy from Iraq who told me that. I just can’t leave my house, but I’m pretty sure I’ll still be here tomorrow. And this will be over soon and then I will go on to complain incessantly about how tired I am of my overly booked life.

There are women and men, and children living in sex slavery. They don’t know if it will ever end. 

That’s all I have to say about that one. 

As I mentioned before, during the Holocaust Jews were hiding in small rooms with many people, no food, no doctors if they got sick and they were afraid for their lives that Nazis would find them and kill them. 

My biggest problem is trying to figure out who killed who in the latest drama about Mexican drug cartels that I am watching. My other issues are that I can’t decide what to snack on every twenty-minutes and trying to decide on a movie on Amazon Prime is impossible with all the choices out there. Do I watch a tried and true one I’ve seen before or try something new?

Can you imagine if this epidemic happened in 1998 and we couldn’t stream TV and movies? We’d have to read books or something. We got it pretty good.

We are being asked to sit on our couches and watch TV and try not to develop too bad of a drinking problem. I don’t drink very much, but I’m pretty sure someone out there needs to hear this. 

The problem with Americans is we have this obsession with ‘freedom.’ But let me ask you this, normally, are our lives really ‘free’? A lot of us have to work jobs we hate in order to eat. We don’t have as much freedom as we think we have but when our superficial freedoms, like the ability to socialize, are taken away, watch out. I’m afraid there will be a riot.

And look, I’m right there with you. This is uncomfortable. But that’s all it really is: uncomfortable.

Let’s face reality. Life could be a lot worse, for a lot of us. Let’s face the fact that for many life has become terrible either with illness or economic despair. If you are one of those people, I am sorry. I am so sorry. 

But for the rest of us who are just mildly inconvenienced by this epidemic, perhaps we could use a little perspective. We are being asked not to go to work. Let me ask you this, when that alarm clock went off before this, how many times did you wish you didn’t have to go in? 

Let’s call this a vacation, a staycation. Let’s be nice to ourselves. Let’s have some fun. Watch that movie, eat the cake, have that glass of wine, in the middle of the day. Who cares anyways? Let’s live a little. 

All’s fair in love and war and quarantine. I’m not going to let some weird disease take over my life. I’m going to chill out and just hang out. I love hanging out. That’s all I ever wanted to do when I was at work. I want to chill, now I’m being mandated by law to chill. I don’t even have to take a chill pill. 

This is our opportunity, people. To sit by the dock of the bay. Wasting time. This is our ticket to relaxation station. Listen to some tunes or watch TV, take off your socks, lie down and the couch and be a good American couch potato. 

We were born to do this. We have spent decades practicing.  

nina