Lockdown Week 5-Essential Business

Is everybody hanging in there? If you know what day it is, what you ate for breakfast AND you’re wearing pants, I’d say you’re doing great. This week, I’m going to depart from the usual recap of the happenings in my house, because frankly it’s all the same and you are likely as bored with it as I am. We eat too much, we drink too much, we exercise too little (none). Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

So, instead I thought it might be helpful to compile a list of “must-haves” for any continuing or future global pandemic that halts life as we know it. These days, my Amazon shopping cart is 20+ items long at any given time, and I am deeply offended when they tell me that my item will not arrive for 10-15 days. I’ve also tried to get my King Soopers groceries delivered, or at the very least prepared for pick-up, and have been told that the soonest available time is NEXT WEDNESDAY. We are going to be really, really hangry by that time. But, silver lining…maybe some of my pants will not be choking the life out of me anymore.

Forget the toilet paper and food items, here is a list of items that you do not want to be without in the event you are spending the rest of your life trapped inside your home with the ones you love, like, tolerate:

**Earplugs. I recently ordered a container of 250 of the best rated earplugs on the market. From the incessant dog barking, to the bickering children, to husband’s highest decibel phone ringer, I need to just block out the noise for 10 blessed minutes. Serenity now.

**Dry Shampoo. I believe I’ve mentioned a time or three that the hygiene levels at the homestead are way down. I shower myself every day, but why go to the trouble of washing and styling my hair if it’s just going to get pulled into a ponytail? Plus, maybe the less I wash it, the more of the blonde I can preserve. See below.

**Advil. So many reasons, but mostly I am old and everything hurts. Plus, just getting up in the morning and reading the day’s news gives me a headache.

**Baseball caps. All the dry shampoo in the world can’t disguise the fact that I haven’t had my hair colored in months. I was right at the end of my 7 week cycle when this nonsense began, and here we are 6 weeks later. If you’re good at math, you’ll figure out that means that my hair is in a sad state. I’d like to say I’m trying out a new ombre look, but that would be a lie and so baseball caps it is.

**An airhorn. The uses for this must-have are too many to count…waking the children who’ve been sleeping for 14 blissful hours, calling everyone to the kitchen for the 75th meal I’ve made today, putting an end to the bickering and whining. Or, just to get a good laugh when husband comes out of the bathroom, where he’s been for too long. Sometimes, he has to go back in.

**Cascade. Other than the earplugs, my poor dishwasher is the most overworked, yet not underappreciated appliance in the house. Under normal circumstances, I don’t mind hand washing dishes and find it therapeutic. But earlier today I found a dish and a fork in teenager’s bed. In.The.Bed. Also, it’s been pretty well documented that we’ve been eating with reckless abandon. After this is over, good ol’ dishwasher will get a much needed break…for like a day.

**Sweatpants. Despite my strong desire to eat semi-healthy and get a wee bit of exercise during this extended lockdown, what trumped that is the craving for processed carbohydrates and binge-watching Netflix. Nothing soothes a frazzled psyche quite like elastic-waist pants and pasta. I’m not sure if the sweatpants have become more of a necessity than a comfort, but it’s my story so we’ll go with option B.

**Lipstick, the brighter the better. Now, I understand the irony behind this item, given my other items like sweatpants and baseball caps. But, there has never been a better time for a fantastic quote like this from the one and only Elizabeth Taylor: