Even My Pandemic Routines Have Become Routine
As I sit down to write this column on an early morning Saturday, one thing is for certain:
I’m not cleaning the bathroom this weekend.
No, bathroom cleaning takes place on the weekends that I’m not producing approximately 650 words of, hopefully, humor. So, two Saturdays a month, I write; two Saturdays I scrub the toilet bowl.
Needless to say, I prefer the writing weekends.
What a strange world we still live in where the passage of time can be measured in cleaning supplies. But, as the pandemic drags into its 13th month, we’ve all learned that menial tasks are now treated as events; where the definition of “weekend plans” means starting a new television series that we race through in a single sitting, as if completing five seasons of Billions is somehow an accomplishment.
Prior to the pandemic, the bathrooms in my house got cleaned when we could longer stand their current conditions. Same for the other rooms in the house. But now I know that when I hear my wife running the vacuum in the family room, it must be Saturday. Wednesday is dusting day; don’t ask me why. If my daughters come home with takeout Chipotle, that means it’s Monday and The Bachelor is about to start. It also means I must be quiet for an hour or two hours if it’s a “very special Bachelor.”
I’ve indulged in lap swimming for, at last count, 13 consecutive Tuesday mornings. When an Amazon delivery person knocks on my door with a 24-pound bag of dog food, I realize my Cockapoo has made it through another two months of quarantine. I try and stay optimistic, thinking the next time a bag arrives, maybe I can greet the driver without wearing a mask. That has yet to happen.
At Costco, I have found myself replenishing industrial-sized containers of comfort food items purchased during the pandemic. Yes, I’m now on my second drum of peanut butter-filled pretzels, a snack I discovered in March 2020 but not something that I thought would still be a staple of my diet a year later.
I have accepted the fact that mask-wearing on planes will be the norm for the foreseeable future. I will continue opening doors with my elbows and closing them with my feet; heck, I probably should have been doing that years ago. Maybe I would have saved myself a bad head cold or whopping case of the flu. Until I can no longer travel, my travel bag will always contain a small bottle of surface cleaner, which I will spray on every hotel room object before unpacking my luggage. I’m fine with all of this.
But please, give me a reason, any reason, to break the monotony that has enveloped me “AH,” an acronym I’ve coined that means “After Hanks.” As far as I’m concerned, the pandemic officially began the day Tom Hanks announced he had tested positive for COVID-19. Up until then, the coronavirus was jokingly referred to as something you caught after drinking too much Mexican beer.
Former President Trump was calling it a hoax, concocted by, you guessed it, the Democrats. His loyal mouthpiece, Kellyanne Conway, was admonishing reporters for daring to ask whether the virus was being contained. But Forrest Gump announced he was positive and boom, the NCAA basketball tournament was cancelled, and nobody could find toilet paper.
The snow outside my office window is melting, signaling the sign of warmer temperatures, the return of outdoor dining and maybe, just maybe, a feeling that the worst is behind us. But I remember feeling that way throughout last summer, only to be forced back inside with my peanut butter pretzels and my Netflix remote. That will not happen again. However long it takes the world to declare victory over the coronavirus, I vow to no longer live by a routine.
If that means cleaning the bathroom on a Thursday, so be it.
Greg Schwem is a business humorist, motivational corporate comedian, corporate emcee, nationally syndicated humor columnist for Tribune Content Agency and creator of the TV series, “A Comedian Crashes Your Pad, distributed by Fantastic Films LLC and available on Roku, Google Play and in the Apple Store. He is currently performing his virtual presentation, “You Can’t Quarantine Laughter” for Fortune 500 companies worldwide.
