Day 1 of the Corona Quarantine

Rita and I both arrived home earlier this week from work trips that were canceled because of the Corona virus.  And it appears that all future travel for at least the next month is canceled for both of us. 

Which means…..for perhaps the first time in our 13 year relationship….we will be spending more than two weeks of uninterrupted time together.  It’s hard to believe that brief spell where I wasn’t working didn’t involve more time together.  As I recall, however, Rita kept getting called away on surprise business trips during my 4 month sabbatical.     

I feel like we will not be the only ones suddenly spending more quality time with their families.  I predict either a rash of CoronaBabies in 9 months or CoronaBreakups before summer.  

But I personally could not ask for a better Quarantine Buddy.  In many ways, Rita has been preparing for this sort of thing for much of her adult life.  And I’m not just saying that because she has enough wine to last years of confinement.  I feel that she always suspected we humans would fuck this up eventually.  Ergo, the start of the Corona virus felt like it just kicked off a well-thought out checklist of “What to expect when you can’t expect anything from your government”:

• 3 tanks of propane in case the electricity goes out for an extended time - CHECK 
• A ream of paper.  I’m not even sure we have a printer that works any more…but just in case we do…
• You had trouble finding toilet paper? Rita clearly found the black market and traded a glimpse of her preparedness checklist for 62 rolls of toilet paper
• The coffee production of a small country.  People have clearly missed the point that you will hardly need all that toilet paper if you run out of coffee.

I mean…damn…Rita even had the foresight to buy a farm three years ago.  I feel like that could come in handy.  

You know what my catastrophe preparedness included?  Buying bacon.  Mark my words…cured meats is going to be the key to this thing in four weeks.  

But I am curious…does it still count as a quarantine if you are allowed to run screaming from your house?  Asking for the wife of a friend.