If there’s one thing I’ve learned from COVID-19, it’s that you need to choose your shelter-in-place partner very carefully.
Odds are good that at some point in our lives, we’ve all been asked the question: “If you could only have one person with you on a desert island, who would it be?” Once you’ve spent every waking hour of the day for three months with the same individual, you might really consider your options before answering.
For example, “Johnny Depp” could have been the reply for many, pre-COVID. Now, I realise I’d be over the looks and delightful quirkiness in about a day, and spend the rest of my life wishing he’d stop doing Jack Sparrow impressions or trying to discuss the mysteries of the Universe, and help more with the foraging-for-food side of things.
I’m sure I don’t have to reveal to most of you that I share a house with my bestest buddy in the whole world, Lynne. She and I have been roomies for more years than I care to reveal, and in all that time, we’ve had very few proper rows. We get along like a house-on-fire and laugh every day. “Who has a better time than we?” I often ask.
Well, nothing tests the strength of a friendship like some strict stay-at-home government regulations. That’s when nitpicking becomes nagging and endearing habits, a daily irritation.
When both of us were working at the office, there were at least 8 hours per day, five days a week, when we didn’t see each other. We’d speak on the phone a bit, but for the most part, there was no communication. It was a delight to meet up in the living room at the end of the workday and discuss what we’d been up to.
On the weekends, she understood that I slept in late, and required a one-hour window after awakening before she was allowed to start asking me about my plans for the day or what we were going to do about the wild chickens in the back garden. I had to put this rule in place because by the time I emerged from my bedroom on a Saturday, she had already been up for two hours and was gagging for a super-accelerated level of verbal communication. I needed an hour to catch up.
At the end of March, things changed. Suddenly we were no longer parted for many hours of the week. We were in the house 24/7 and now we’d see how compatible we really were.
Lynne had her desk set up in one room, and I was set up in another. All good there. However, working from home meant more phone calls to clients and coworkers, or Zoom meetings. You’ll be shocked to hear this, but I’m pretty loud when I’m talking.
I’d be on the phone, and out of the corner of my eye, I’d see a figure approaching. “Can you keep it down?” she asked, gesturing with her hand like she was patting an invisible dog.
The first, second, third and fourth time, I was apologetic and understanding. After the 20th time, I was less so. I had always been this volume. She knew my knob went to 11. Other people would kill to live with a foghorn! Gripe, gripe…
With all the extra time on our hands in lockdown, you would have thought we’d be able to tackle lots of postponed jobs. If anything, however, I found myself less motivated than when I was constantly busy.
To Lynne’s annoyance, tasks I had promised to complete each day went the way of the Dodo. I was going to clear out the fridge, waving goodbye to mayonnaise from 2018 and that loaf of 50-grain bread I’d stuck at the back of the freezer that now resembled a perfectly preserved woolly mammoth.
On Monday, the plan was to organise the ‘junk room’. On Tuesday, I’d email the bank and change the phone number on my cheques. On Wednesday, the sorry-looking set of Christmas lights would finally come down from the front of the house… Needless to say, this Solomon Grundy got none of it done, which understandably stuck in Lynne’s craw.
I also learned to not even mumble a project that I thought might be a good idea, as she’d pounce on it like Dr. Lee on a COVID test result. When would this start? Where was I planning to get the materials from? Should we maybe Google some similar projects to get an idea of what cost was involved?
In the end, I put my hands on her two shoulders and gently said, “No matter what I say I might like to do, please automatically add ‘at some point’ to the end of it.”
She also excels at follow-up queries. The FBI has got nothing on Lynne when she wants to get to the bottom of something. I have therefore added the response, “That is all the information I have at this time,” to our lexicon of phrases, to indicate that further probing would be a waste of her time.
It all really came to a head when I was delighted to see that one of the roosters outside (I’ve named him ‘Rusty’) was becoming more comfortable with me. Lynne is constantly hosing bird poop off the back deck, so, as you can imagine, she was thrilled to see me encouraging him into the house through the nearby door to get some gourmet cracked corn.
One of the cats came in at the same time, which caused enough of a barrier in the escape route that the bird went a little bananas. He got out pretty quickly soon after, but the flapping and squawking did me no favours. Lynne was so unreasonable about it all, ahem.
Now, we are all moving much more freely about Cayman. Lynne and I are in and out of the house a lot, and things are settling back to normal. The friendship has survived the crisis and the chickens are firmly outdoors.
Who would I want with me on a desert island? Lynne, of course. Unless George Clooney returns my call…
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