Is It Better To Be Quarantined Alone Or As A Couple?

Okay, so, quarantine 2020, are you doing it alone or did you get locked down with your partner?  Which is the better hell?

Sartre says hell is other people.  Some say hell is loneliness. 

I can only go by my own personal experience and what I've observed from the people closest to me.  And basically, the people I know who are quarantined with their spouses have gone crazy.  And not just a little.  Like, bugfucking nuts, you know?

I'm not saying they're actually fucking bugs, but whatever's going on, it's not cool.

Paranoia.  Anger.  Conspiracy.  Rage.

All of which they are MORE than happy to send my way.

First of all, I have become personally responsible for everything Governor Andrew Cuomo says.  And, dude talks every day!  It's gotten to the point where anytime the Governor tweets that he's having a briefing my reaction is "Oh SHIT"

I visited my younger brother and his family this weekend.  Totally safely.  We stayed outdoors and six feet apart.  I wanted to see my niece and nephew.  Seeing what being quarantined with each other is doing to them was a real eye-opener.   I mean, I wouldn't want to be quarantined with either of them, they were high-strung to begin with.

Now they're raving paranoids.  BUT, they've both become infectious disease specialists, so that was impressive.   You can imagine how small I felt when I discovered they had both taken advantage of their time in quarantine to become certified epidemiologists.  I mean, I thought I was hot shit because I gave myself a pedicure.

Oh look, I gave myself a pedicure!  Oh yeah, well, we became epidemiologists. Boy, do I feel the fool.  

I kind of felt like they had discussed "turning" me prior to my arrival.  They were certainly on a roll.

They began ranting about how I forgot what "flatten the curve" meant.  Did I?  Damn, I felt so stupid.  If only I wasn't spending so much time googling "how to give yourself a pedicure that doesn't look like you did it with your other foot".  I might have remembered what flatten the curve meant!

"It meant, flatten the curve so the hospitals don't get overwhelmed, and they don't run out of ventilators."

Oh, yeah, well actually I did know that.  

"Well, we flattened the curve and there are plenty of ventilators, so why aren't we opening up?"

Wait  a minute.  Wasn't there something else to the whole flatten the curve thing?  Like, wasn't it buying us time so we could ramp up testing and contact tracing?  I seemed to recall this, so I ventured to mention it.

"Contact tracing!  What a JOKE!  THAT'S never going to work!  It's a joke!"

"What's funny about it?"

"People are gonna get that call, and then be like, CLICK."  (this coupled with a mime of hanging up the phone.)

Now I was really stumped,  just like the pedicure-obsessed moron  I am.  Why would anyone hang up on a health official calling to inform them they've been exposed to a dangerous virus?

My brain had to work fast to answer that one, let me tell you.  I was up against not one, but TWO, highly trained epidemiologists.  What chance did my little pea-brain have?  And now I had to figure out this puzzle.  But somehow, it came to me.

They would hang up because they didn't want to be quarantined for 14 days.  So they would happy-ass around infecting old people, people with cancer and other underlying conditions, not a care in the world.  They'd be killing people, knowingly. Just to avoid 14 days at home.  Well, if they were home with one of these two, I could almost understand it.

 This dear reader, is what we call projection. You won't stay home for 14 days so you don't kill someone, therefore, no one would.

Is it any wonder they voted for the Tell-Tale heart himself, Donald J. Trump?

"Well, it worked in other countries..." I began.  

"And YOU should be outraged!" one of them screamed at me.

Oh okay, I guess we're moving on.  And why should I be outraged?  Because of my business.  I really have none since the pandemic.  See, I'm in events.  There are no events.  But there are no events because large corporations cancelled their planned involvement in any large event.  They didn't do that because of Andrew Cuomo, or Gavin Newsom, or Jay Inslee.  

They did it because companies aren't going to take on the liability of putting both their employees and their customers in harm's way.  And they're also not going to spend big money for events they know nearly no one will attend.

So being outraged at Andrew Cuomo over my lack of business would be like getting pissed at the  moon because it rained.  It would make no fucking sense. 

But then, I've been in lockdown alone.  So my days are not spent listening to someone else chew.  If I was lockdowned with someone else and forced to listen to their chewing, I probably would be looking to make Andrew Cuomo pay, because I would have lost my mind by now.   Much like some other people I could mention.

So first, I was accused of wanting to fuck Andrew Cuomo.  I don't want to.  I have already gone over my fantasy fucks, and they are, in no particular order: 

Chris Evans/Wentworth Miller/Jason Momoa/Idris Elba

Now, I am being incited to outrage at Andrew Cuomo.  This is like the worst game of fuck, marry, kill, I've ever played. 

The truth is, I really don't give a shit about Andrew Cuomo.  I voted for him this past election, when in truth, in another time, I might not have.  I might have voted for a more liberal alternative.  But with Trump in power, I knew I needed a strong state executive, and I had the choice of Andrew Cuomo or Miranda from Sex in the City.

And Andrew Cuomo can bring the hammer down, this much I knew.  And I have not once regretted my choice, nor do I regret that he is governor.  He's what is needed for the Trump years.  

And even if I got a brain tumor, and started agreeing with my brothers that Cuomo is an "emperor" and a "dictator", what difference would that make?  Do you know by how much Cuomo won the election?   He received 60% of the vote.  And many who didn't vote for him were bitter leftists who wanted Miranda.  

So, no Republican is becoming governor of NYS any time soon.  

Yet, my MAGA family invest good time trying to swing my vote.  

More proof that being in lockdown with your spouse sucks and you are better off alone.   You always have ZOOM happy hours.  And you can press mute when they start chewing.