A few surprises.

1. I miss my minivan. Sometimes I climb out of bed, where I am spending an inordinate amount of time, and gaze wistfully out the window at the giant family wagon parked on the street — empty and unused. I think of all the dings and scratches I got squeezing that thing into compact parking spaces (compact, my ass), all the times I wished I drove something zippier and sexier, like a Mini Cooper (humor me, please). I think of all the hours I spent cursing the van, as I drove mind-numbing amounts of carpool and hauled myself in and out with groceries nobody would help me bring into the house.
2. I do not yet miss grocery shopping. Get back to me on that. Also, go wash your hands.
3. I miss not being hungry. Before this, I was the kind of person who could skip lunch without knowing it. I’d even been known to say super annoying things like, “Those cookies look great, but I’m not hungry right now.” Now, all I am is hungry. I’m hungry when I wake up. I’m hungry when I go to bed. And it’s not for a lack of eating. All I’m doing is eating. I’m eating things I don’t even like (tortilla chips = cardboard, sue me.) I’m eating just about every hour on the hour and if you could see me (which you can’t because you can’t come over, nobody can), you’d know that I spend just about every minute of the day with a mouth full of food. Speaking of which, I’m hungry again and there is a vegan ice cream bar with my name on it (judge not, people). I’ll be right back. Go wash your hands while you’re waiting.
4. I miss tights and boots and I’m worried that by the time I’m allowed outside again tights and boots season will be over and I’ll be launched into the season in which I’m forced to worry about the condition of my feet. I do not, not even for a minute, want to talk about the current state of my legs.
5. I miss not worrying about people in my community who may be sick.
6. I miss unloading the dishwasher and then not IMMEDIATELY loading it with all the filthy dishes which have accumulated in the sink. Also, the three thousand glasses my family seems to go through in one day. While I love a metal straw, I’m sort of wishing that we hadn’t jumped on that bandwagon until after the quarantine, because ask me how fun it is to clean 100 of those a day. Speaking of soap and water, go wash your hands. I’ll be here when you get back.
7. I miss my friends. It turns out I am not an introvert after all. Or perhaps I’m just not the kind of person who can be trapped in a house with her children for 10 plus days and not lose her mind.
8. I miss not having to see my face in a Zoom camera several times a day and getting the SHOCK of my life when I see the crypt-keeper staring back at me.

Forget toilet paper and Lysol wipes. If this thing goes on forever, I’m hoarding concealer.

Mostly, I miss the sense of normalcy of life before we were all indoors. My kids are starting to look like the children from the Flowers in the Attic, and not in that adorable tow-headed (yet incest-y) way. The only winner has been our cat Lois, who hates to be home alone (also, not apparently much of an introvert) and thinks she has died and gone to homebody heaven.

Hoping you all have good, restful weekends, that you are doing a better job than I am of fighting off the snacking demons, and that you did not (as I may have) pull a child by the ponytail this week. #winning.

Now, go wash your hands.