I, like many of you (or a couple of you if you’re college-aged and reading this in Texas or Florida), have not been out much in the past five months. For nigh half a year, I, my partner, and our loin fruit have confined ourselves nearly entirely to our house. Our house, in case you’re curious, is 1,000 square feet of space, with two bedrooms, one bathroom, and very nice original woodwork. It’s decorated just how we want it, and doesn’t resemble an oubliette in any way, save one — the fact that we cannot leave it. This has made us all a little barmy. And not in the cute, eccentrically quirky way, like we’ll take up painting with dark chocolate or bat guano or something. More in a Grey-Gardens-meets-Biosphere kind of way.
Up until this very experience, I’ve often fantasized about being the scientist Robinson family, in the Lost in Space series, catapulting from planet to planet, galaxy to galaxy, spending quality time together while learning about the universe and each other. But now I realize the food replicator would definitely run out of salt, or some shit, and Will and Judy would be fighting about who’s cabin was bigger, and everyone would be able to hear mom and dad having sex, because the children’s hearing has grown acute in isolation, some kind of COVID cognitive reserve, and they can hear gossip about the neighbors even if you’re whispering, and they have noise-canceling headphones on. It’s fine if you bought them noise-canceling headphones, by the way. It’s fine if they’ve watched all three Lord of the Rings movies, today. It’s fine if they’re eating cold hotdogs as snacks, taking showers only on the full moon, and sleeping in their Halloween costumes. If I’ve learned anything in these past few months, it’s that we’re all really just one space worm in the gas tank away from lighting the whole fucking thing on fire and living in the smoking ruins like angry goblins. (But on Vega 947, or something.)
So now, I don’t fantasize about being the space Robinsons, nor do I fantasize even about being the tanned and attractive island Robsinsons. I fantasize about going to the bathroom in complete silence and privacy. About attending to my basic bodily functions without a single discussion of who has been playing Roblox on the one Roblox-paying device the longest. I’ve never needed that information to poop before, and I don’t need it now.
I fantasize about not interrogating my children’s friends’ parents about their whereabouts prior to playdates, like some idiosyncratically jealous boyfriend. Conversations with other parents to coordinate socially-distant playdates have become more complex than arranging a marriage or negotiating the release of a hostage. I just want to talk about the weather, or your new balayage treatment. May I never again know the last time you’ve been coughed upon by some decrepit dickear pillock in the line at Super One, amen.
A guy drove by my house the other day, with his windows down, audibly coughing, and I shit you not, it felt akin to hearing a distant gunshot. A drive-by coughing, if you will. Things have gotten so weird. For example, I’ve come to view elevators as levitating, hermetically-sealed, chambers of death, and have a deep and near-instinctual scandal-response to the sight of anyone’s lower face parts, like some confused and distorted Victorian doctrinaire asshole. When really, I’m just your run-of-the-mill modern asshole.
So, if you’ve taken up smoking Winston Golds behind the shed in your backyard and staring directly into the shining, black, lifeless eyes of your neighbor’s dog, I want you to know that I see you. The world is on fire. If you’ve been thinking of lighting your lawn on fire, rather than mowing it, it makes a kind of crude but elegant sense. (Don’t do it, of course — it’s full of earwigs, and we don’t know what those are for, yet.) If you feel like sitting criss-cross applesauce on the front lawn and eating an entire package of Double-Stuffed Oreos while flipping off any passing cars, huzzah. Godspeed. You’ll get no side-eye from me.
Now is not the time to split hairs, unless they’re the hairs on your partner’s head, and need splitting, then by all means, give that person the worst haircut of their entire life, and do it with all the love in your heart, and a bra full of tiny, sliver-like hair clippings. Now is the time to accept that the things we used to do to stop ourselves getting into screaming matches with the clothes dryer or peeing out the window of a moving vehicle aren’t options anymore. We have to get creative, and the only supplies are located inside our house. The United States has become the world’s largest and shittiest escape room, and I’m not going to harsh your mellow because you need to eat refried beans from the can while binge-watching Wynonna Earp. I understand. I’m stuck here, too. I’m your biggest fan. I’ll be the one applauding your efforts from right behind the shed, where I am imagining a world free of coronavirus, full of attractive wizards with hearts of gold, who only want what we all want: to feed you pancakes and stop an army of darkness (and vampires and fae) from upsetting the balance of good and evil in the world.
