NOTES FROM CAPTIVITY: SHELF LIFE

My captor continues to keep me in “loose quarantine”, which means I am homebound except for essential errands. These include trips to buy produce, beer and cigarettes. In an attempt to get out more, I have taken up smoking.

But this pandemic and its safety rules are nothing new for me –people have been socially distancing from me for years. And I’m so glad I’m married to my captor, because I don’t have to deal with the bar scene: It used to be you went to bars to be serially rejected, but now you can get sick and die, too. I’ve read that masks have enabled speed dating, as custom masks can be adorned with the wearer’s interests: Music groups, sports teams, odd sexual positions and preferences. But beware of the double mask wearer – he’s interested in you and your friend.

On the plus side we now have a face and a name for C19: Young people! Everything was fine until those young people! ruined everything by going to bars, parties, and college. Young People! OMR #106 (shakes fist).

Making this entire thing more unsettling is that we are heading into the teeth of hurricane season. But I now have a feeling of calm, because I recently bought a generator. That purchase, combined with buying a case of Dasani and gassing up the car, means that we probably won’t have a hurricane this season. But just in case, I am following my Mother’s timeless advice and wearing clean underwear every day. However, after reading the generator’s directions, it seems about as safe as me owning a gun.  As long as we keep a window cracked we should be fine, right? But I’m guessing  if we get to Y names, they’ll call it Hurricane Y: Young people! (shakes fist).

After all these months at home we (my captor) are running low on projects. We have alpahabetized all our books and the spice drawer, alphabetized our his and hers towels – sorry, hers and his –and alphabetized the names of this year’s hurricanes. But I guess they didn’t need any help with that one.

Our most recent project has been to organize our freezer and refrigerator for greater efficiency, but we are having trouble agreeing on the process. Should we sort by size of the manufacturer? FIFO/LIFO? By package art? We have been careful  to put all the disgraced brand icons in the back, including Tony the Tiger. The revelations will be shocking on good old Tony…

We finally settled on sorting by shelf life, with the expired products in the front and the other three in the back. But this exercise gave me pause: What if humans had a shelf life?  What if we knew how much time we had left with friends and family? How much freshness remains in that brain? We would know who to keep in front, and who to slide to the back – and who to stick in the crisper bin. And we would definitely move my disgraced uncle to the back – he deserves whatever Tony does to him…

If we knew, then maybe we’d appreciate our loved ones more and avoid future regret, as in: When was the last time I talked to him/her? As shared in a previous post, maybe this is a good time to tell your loved ones they are your loved ones. And to do it now.

And if you could learn your own shelf life, would you?