I’ll have the Quarantine with a side of Crazy.

                A long time ago, during Hurricane Gilbert, I remember being forced to isolate inside my parent’s house.  I sat in my bedroom, looking through the boarded up windows, watching the wind make the trees and rain dance and bitch slapping everyone’s trashcans up and down the street.  I was stuck in the house with only three or four other family members for only 6-8 hours but it felt like days.  I remember feeling anxious and not being able to handle being “locked up” in the house for our own safety from Mother Nature’s drop kick that was about to hit us.  We had a TV connected to a Super Nintendo to keep my mind occupied but I guess because we could not go outside … that is where I wanted to be.

                Then it happened.  The power went out and we went into “survival mode”.  I remember grabbing my flashlight and my radio to make sure they had batteries because the sound of rain might be relaxing to some of you but when it was being delivered with 60-85 mph winds, it does not sound that relaxing.  I can almost still hear my Mom yelling, “Close the refrigerator! You’re gonna let out all the freshness” (damn…I miss that woman).  Now living in South Texas, the temperatures can range from slightly uncomfortable to hotter than the inside of Satan’s sauna and with the air conditioners now off in the house … we were about to start the original Survivor game.  I remember unlocking and trying to lift the window in my room to try to get some fresh and super dangerous air that was strong enough to knock down trees and tip over tractor-trailers.  Being unable to handle that discomfort, I remember turning to look at my dad and saying with much sarcasm, “I bet we’d get a lot more air if these windows didn’t have boards covering them”.

He turned to look at me, made a confused facial expression, turned to my mom to say something, turned back to me with disbelief then finally turned back to my mom and said something in Spanish with the hidden message of something like “if this little fucker doesn’t watch himself, he’s gonna be thrown out into this hurricane”.

Again, we had battery-powered radios with good music, enough food for weeks, board games that no one wanted to play and family all around us and I was still unable to keep from making bad choices and possibly being exiled for my actions.  Fast forward to the second week in March of 2020.

First off … Back to the Future lied to us!

Along with every other movie about the future.

Anyway…now we are in a pandemic caused by a microscopic cell with the ability to cause your lungs, kidneys and liver to shut down. It can create blood clots and in case, you did not know … IT KILLS PEOPLE.  Our government has asked us to self-quarantine but being closed in (other than going to get groceries, get oil changes, go to fast food places because fried food and unhealthy choices usually make the best memories)is almost impossible to do.  Something as simple as touching your face after shaking someone else’s hand. Being too close to him or her when talking face-to-face or even walking in the same path as someone else could actually kill you today.

HELLO!

THIS IS SOME SERIOUS SHIT!

Small businesses might be shut down forever, school buildings have shut their doors to set up for internet based education, unemployment has sky rocketed and you are out there stock piling toilet paper, ramen noodles, eggs and milk.  You are out there complaining that you are being asked to help your child learn; limit the quantities of your purchases, and to keep at least a SIX FOOT SPACE between yourself and others.

THIS IS NOT BLACK FRIDAY PEOPLE!

All of the lines you see outside of stores are for your safety and the safety of all the employees that you already treated like shit before COVID-19.  These employees do not need you yelling at them because some dumb ass took all the toilet paper and they damn sure do not have to go “double check” in the back if the item is not on the shelf.  They are just as scared as you are about this pandemic but they have to still deal with our needy asses.  I am sure they are ready for the world to go back to “normal” but it is not their fault that sports are cancelled, you are stuck with your family or that you have to be in all those fucking Zoom meetings … get over it.

Sorry, back to the point of the story.

Now I will admit that I use to be a real “man of the people”.  I use to be able to walk into a room, start a conversation and leave with 2-3 new friends.  Currently, I have become more of a hermit.

I joke with my students and say that I am more ogre like, example Shrek.

To be clear, I am not like the fun loving Shrek from Shrek Forever After where he had the happy family and an array of friends…

I see myself much more like the original Shrek, before he meets Donkey and finds a cross dressing wolf in his bed.  I tell you this because you have to have a back-story, right?

Anyway, currently my life is actually closer to Shrek 2,

where I am in love with my fairy tale wife but am trying to make myself into the “Prince Charming” that I know she deserves.  I have friends that I consider family and family that in all honesty, can no longer be classified as family but with all of this closure and isolation, I find myself reverting to the original Shrek – Isolated and left alone in his swamp.

This is not good for me or anyone else.  It sometimes is compared to being locked in jail or prison but really.

We get to go outside, eat whatever we can afford, use our technology to watch whatever we want but sure…we are in prison…the prison of our own mind.

Now not being able to gather in public, hangout with coworkers, give fist bumps to my students, go out to dinner or go to the gym has literally been eating away at what little sanity I had left.  Maybe I need to try to go back to being the “man of the people” when all this is over.  Distancing myself from others is not a bad thing but when doing that so much has dug me a hole that makes me feel like I’m looking up at Buffalo Bill and his dog yelling, “IT PUTS THE LOTION IN THE BASKET OR IT GETS THE HOSE AGAIN” is not a good thing either.

All I am saying is this:

Safety comes in numbers. Do not distance yourself so much that you have made yourself alone.

So talk to someone, share a story, tell a joke… it will help your heart, your mind and it might even save your life.

Moreover, when they let you out of your “hole”, try to help make the world we share just a little better.