Day 27 of our quarantine. We have not left the house in almost a month. Things are starting to get monotonous. Not in the way I thought they would.
But do you know what’s funny? My dogs are doing just fine. They aren’t even suffering. Life hasn’t changed much for them. They still chase cats. They still eat random piles of cat poop. They still take time out of their busy schedules to pee on important trees.
We have lots of local feral cats, and whenever my dogs see a cat, they bolt after it, howling, kicking up dirt clods behind their back feet. Even if you happen to be holding the leash.
My dogs never catch these cats, but they never give up either. And I admire this. Sometimes I wonder if dogs aren’t smarter than we are.
So it’s not that I have cabin fever—though I do—it’s more than that. It’s that I am going out of my freaking mind. Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not Joe Extrovert, I am definitely the kind of guy
who could lock himself in a room and read books until his 80th birthday.
And I don’t mean good books, either. I’m talking about books that cost a buck from the drugstore clearance bin. Books like, “Cowboys and Vampires Break the Davinci Code While Losing 30 Pounds with Suzanne Somers!”
For 27 days, I’ve read enough cheap drugstore books to sink the U.S.S. Wisconsin. Also, I’ve been piddling a lot. Piddling is a lost art, but I’ve found that I’m pretty good at it.
I can putter around the house, doing ridiculous tasks with the same level of importance you’d use to perform neural surgery. I cleaned my workbench, for instance. I tested a few cordless drill batteries. I spent an hour separating bolts from screws, then tossed them all back together again. I took down the Christmas lights. I finally got around to…