I was on Facebook, not really doing much except procrastinating, when I saw a meme that said something about "In 2015, whatever you saw yourself doing in 5 years, you got it wrong". I know that's right, because back in 2015 if someone had said to me "Hey, in 2020 there's going to be this COVID-19 pandemic and you're going to feel like you're living in some hybrid version of The Twilight Zone and The Stand", I probably would have thought, yeah, right, whatever, whatever happens in 2020 it definitely won't be that. Ha ha, ha ha, ha.
I haven't been writing much (ok, I haven't written anything at all) because the situation we all find ourselves in still seems too incomprehensible to fully process and as soon as some little spark of inspiration would ignite in my brain and I'd prepare to sit down and write, another WTF? moment would present itself and poof, spark extinguished. At first, the COVID-19 pandemic was scary but it was also a kind of edgy adventure, like going on a wild amusement park ride after being told that the park had badly flunked its last safety inspection. It didn't matter if you were a Republican or a Democrat, you still weren't going to find any toilet paper or hand sanitizer at the grocery store. Once I was sent home to telework, like a lot of other people, I settled in to my new cubicle which is also my kitchen table, I swapped Office Pet stories and memes about the differences between working at home and working at work with my besties on Messenger, and mentally calculated if my savings in gasoline costs would be enough to splurge on a new pair of birding binoculars.
And then the months went by and it just kept being weird, but I didn't realize just how weird it was because as an introvert I had been doing mainly three things since March: teleworking, eating too much junk food, and birding (nothing, not even a pandemic, stops birders from birding) and then it was time to take the College Student back to school. She'd been home in the spring doing a semester-long co-op, so she was more than ready to fly out of the nest again (note to college freshmen parents enjoying an empty nest: sometimes they do come back) and there is just something really strange and slightly unsettling about walking around a college campus seeing people move into their dorms while wearing masks. Moving into a dorm in mid-August: Normal. Moving into a dorm in mid-August while wearing a mask: Not normal (and, when the dorm room is on the 4th floor and there is no elevator, it's also somewhat uncomfortable).
Actually, that wasn't the first strange thing. The first strange thing was driving by the high school in early August and not seeing the marching band practice. If you are driving by a high school in Texas in the early evening in August and there is no marching band out practicing, something is definitely off.
The second strange thing was entering the land of Not-Texas on our college-bound long-distance road trip and stopping at a fast food place to eat, only to enter, observe lots of people not wearing masks, and feeling overwhelmed by (1) the number of people all in one place; and (2) the number of people all in one place not wearing masks. We grabbed our order and fled outside. Seeing the signs asking people to wear masks and not to come inside if you thought you were ill because "of the current pandemic" 500 miles from home really made the dysfunctionality of 2020 real: here is evidence that this is really happening EVERYWHERE.
The strangest thing, however, was finding out what the school's "quarantine plan" was. The College Student elected to live on campus again, and so had to be tested for COVID-19 as part of the move-in process. If you tested positive, you would be temporarily moved to the "quarantine/isolation dorm". Friends told me that at their kid's school, if you tested positive you had to go home. This is what I never would have guessed about 2020: In 2020, if you have a kid who is going to college, you better find out what happens if they test positive to COVID-19. Is there a quarantine dorm? Do they have to come home? One site on Facebook advised packing a "quarantine bag" in case your student needed to relocate quickly. When The College Student was looking at colleges way back in 2017-2018, that wasn't even something you'd ask.
When I came home, it was time for the Son of Never Stops Eating to start his senior year of high school. This is the final strange thing: The Son of Never Stops Eating misses school. Since kindergarten, he has been Mr. No School. But when school went virtual, he realized he did actually miss school. Now he is Mr. I Can't Wait to Go Back To School. He's ready for this to end, he tells me every day. He's done with it, finished. I suspect that he is not alone in that.
