“Do my llama slippers need an Instagram account?” and other pandemic questions May 21, 2020By Rita Buettner Filed Under: Blog, Commentary, Open Window The other night I decided to go online and order a pair of llama slippers. They arrived this week. Now my feet are warm, and I never need to leave the house again. It’s a complete victory. I find myself taking photos of the slippers and texting them to two of my sisters. Yesterday I said to them, “I wonder whether it’s time for the llama slippers to have their own Instagram account.” And it hit me. That’s one of those questions you don’t think you’ll ever ask yourself until you’re in your third month of quarantine. My llama slippers are practically my mascot for this time in my life. For the first time in my life, I want slippers because I live in my house. They can be shaped like llamas or corgis or avocados, and I can wear them all day, because most people only see me from the shoulders on up. And they might as well have an Instagram account of their own because most of my social interactions are happening virtually anyway. Do my llama slippers need an Instagram account? I’m not sure. But the question made me laugh. And I started thinking about other unexpected questions that only seem to come up when you’ve been living under stay-at-home orders for weeks on end. This is what I’ve come up with: Where is all the toilet paper? Where are all the wipes? How can I be so bad at teaching fractions and decimals? How can I be even worse at teaching English Language Arts homework when I majored in English and have devoted my life to the written word? How did it take a pandemic for me to discover grocery delivery? Where does all the food I buy go? Why is it that when I ask what we need from the store, I listen to the answers and carefully write, “Skittles, Sprite, Seaweed, Yeast,” as if that’s a completely sensible list? Why am I so bad at explaining that Spam and sugar cubes are not an acceptable lunch? How will we ever get out of the house on time again? How will we ever get out of the house? Why do we own cell phones when we don’t go anywhere? Are my children learning anything? Why is it so hard to get children logged onto classes? Why do other people seem to have so much time, and I’ve only watched one total episode of The Crown in nine weeks? Was there always this much wildlife in our backyard? What were screen time limits? Did I ever enforce them? How did it take so long to get to Friday? Wait…it’s not Friday? Why do I own so many shoes? Why do I own shoes at all? Do people need to eat lunch again today? Why are Oreos so good when they are soft and stale? Do the stale Oreos need their own Instagram account? So many questions. I don’t know the answers. But I do have fuzzy llama slippers. So, life is good. Print
