Happy Quarannviersary! One year ago today, the managing partner of my office gathered everyone in a conference room and told us that we would be working from home for the next two weeks while we ride out the pandemic. ha ha ha ha TWO WEEKS! ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
Two weeks turned into two months and two months has dragged on to a year. Over the past year people have been singing the praises of our doctors and nurses working tirelessly to save lives and the essential workers like the grocery store employees who risk their lives everyday so that idiots without masks can grocery shop. They ARE America’s heroes. They deserve all the praise and hazard pay.
But on this anniversary that I never want to celebrate again, I’d like to honor the true hero in my life – my couch. I’ve spent a year on my couch. It has been my office, a restaurant, a movie theatre, my best friend. I drink my morning coffee on it while I read all of the emails I will eventually fail to respond to. I’m on the couch when I reluctantly log on to work and I’ll stay there until my laptop threatens to shut down because the battery’s drained. I eat my lunch and take my lunch time nap on it every day. In the evenings, I sit on the left side to eat dinner and watch TV. I sit on the right side to drink wine and scroll through social media and text with friends or read a book.
I’m especially attached to it on the weekends. With nothing to do and nowhere to go, I like cry from frustration/boredom/loneliness and then take a long afternoon nap just to pass the time. Which side I cry/sleep on depends on where the cats are. I do my best to contort my body around them so they can sleep in peace.
My abused and suffering couch is wine-stained, coffee-stained, tear-stained, chocolate stained (and yes, it’s chocolate – I sat on a rogue chocolate chip), shredded by a kitten who doesn’t give two fluffs that I don’t want her to scratch it, and sagging from having to support my ever increasing pandemic weight gain.
I haven’t decided what I’ll do with it after the panny ends. I probably should put it out of its misery and send it off to couch heaven, but I’m not sure I’m that selfless. Do I really want to have to get to know another couch while I reacquaint myself with my friends, family and co-workers?