The frosts are finally ending and summer should be starting. The sunny days have been misleading. When stepping out onto the terrace the mornings are very fresh, jacket required. A couple of nights ago it was -7C. This morning was no exception as I rolled onto the terrace at 8:00 for a few minutes. Soon my fingers went numb and I psychologically prepared for the day. I thought to myself how I would rather sit out here and freeze rather than return to the chaos inside, but there was no choice in the matter.
The day started and it proceeded like each of the past seventeen in quarantine. I finally took a call “I couldn’t miss” and ran into my office. It was a friend of mine and he was looking for someone to talk to. I should have skipped the call because this friend is single, lives in a nice flat, lots of space, everything the way he wants, and no obligations.
It started with his problems: No girls, they are all hiding or left the city. No friends, the bars are closed. Poor lad is bored. He is spending his time working, watching some movies, listening to some music, considering which place to get take-out from, going for a run in the empty Stromovka park, cycling to Karlstejn and on and on. I listened for five minutes and didn’t say a word. Then he finally asked if I was still there and I said “yes, and I will be locked-in here for the next 30 days, at least, and no girls or bars for pretty much ever!” The guy was describing my dream vacation. The next question referred to if it was “really that bad.” Now I can say it is not a matter of good or bad but when you don’t have a spare second during the day with which to even pause and think without some little man pulling on your arm, someone pooping themselves, or your better half having a hysterical fit, just because there is no end to the madness, then in comparison, yes it is bad!
My friend went into some philosophical discussion about family etc. I daydreamed out and thought about my summers in Greece windsurfing. Then other travels to far off places, with great friends, and no rules. What a life. Why is it that humans decide to have families: commit to one partner and create liabilities which exist for the rest of our time on this earth! I ended the conversation and hoped I could get some more work done before a new distraction presented itself.
Another phone call, another friend looking to talk. It had been a while since we spoke, I think it was right around the beginning of the quarantine. She had told me how the slow-down had saved her and allowed her to get more things done. No running around picking up children from activities, school, homework etc. etc. We started talking and I quickly learned that it had all changed. The kids were supposed to be learning from home but each parent had a job, which even from home still required communication with others. Thus one parent could work while the other entertained or educated the children. The juggling of conference calls, work time and children put a serious strain on nerves and energy and added tension between all family members. My goodness, now this is someone I can relate too! We wondered how long this could last. As a natural contrarian I insisted that we are certainly doomed to be squirrelled up in our apartments until month’s end. That being said we will quickly revert back to our old lives and reminisce about the forced time with our families. Juggling all the duties of real parenting with no outsourcing of cooking, cleaning, educating or our place of work was not the dream many of us had once imagined. We agreed and off we went.
I did not want to return to reality so I called another friend. He is a big boss at one of those giant corporations that rule the world. I asked him what he thought and he said everyone loves the home office and they are considering cutting back office space and pushing people to work more from home. Once it is all set up and going, the employees actually never leave work. To escape anything they defer to checking e-mails, moving things on, and/or working on those projects where one needs to concentrate for a few hours to the late hours of the night. “This could be the big jump in productivity we have been looking for” he said. That conversation scared the hell out of me as I imagined doing all this for the rest of my life. No way, I would never agree to it! I want to take the train into town, buy a nice “makovy kolac” for breakfast from that unfriendly lady at the metro stop bakery, see everyone in the office, organize important meetings, go out for a top-notch lunch, and wear all that nice clothes I bought. In fact, if I didn’t like to drive to work once in a while would I really need that much car? Perhaps we would never really need to leave our home as the business of home shopping and delivery is getting a massive push forward at the moment. This is actually the life that my school teachers promised us thirty years ago – and we hated it! And that was before we had families!
I pondered the various calls and felt like someone had fooled me into this situation. Who was at the controls, how could they have convinced me that I needed to stay at home? Or am I just becoming paranoid like those freedom fighting militia maniacs in America?
As my brain went into overdrive my wife walked into the office, coffee and cake in hand. “Here is a snack sweetheart” she started. “Wouldn’t it be great if we could live like this all the time?”
Paul Lysek – The idea of writing a daily update came to me by seeing, hearing and trying to understand all the things that are happening around us at this time. This story is a combination of all those sources, including friends, relatives, and experiences with attempts to bring out the satire, emotion and changing environment of the situation. It is entirely fictional, with the exception of my sarcasm.
