Lockdown is stressful and some people are not coping.
Take my wife. She is a bit tetchy.
I say a bit, but she has, in fact, become a monster. I went shopping the other day for some extravagant fripperies. You know, bread, milk and cheese. That sort of thing.
Within five minutes, I got a text asking what was keeping me and saying she was weak from hunger. I just replied: “Are you joking? I have only just reached the Co-op?”
She texted back: “Since you cannot work out the sender’s tone from texts, just assume all mine are sarcastic and hurtful. Hurry up.”
It all started when she went to get money at the hole-in-the-wall after doing some shopping.
Why she did that I don’t know, because everyone is contactless since the lockdown – including her. Don’t tell her I said that.
Anyway, there was a queue at the cash machine and while she was waiting, probably gabbing in a completely socially distanced way, of course, someone else must have brushed past and pinched frozen peas from her basket.
Which goes to show that, even in these unprecedented times, you have to mind your peas and queues.
That made her tetchy all right. Another of her new grumpy things is: “I always get granules on my tongue when you make a cuppa.
“It is not like that when I make it. If you are going to make me coffee, you should stir it five times.”
Er? Just say thank you like everyone else. That woman’s becoming impossible. Right now, she would give an aspirin a headache.
Talk of quarantine after taking a flight is upsetting us. Now they may extend the quarantine to any flight – even the longer internal ones.
Any passenger could be passing it on, they say.
Just when we had started planning to go to see a junior member of this family in Gloucestershire, via Birmingham Airport, when the unprecedented times stuff is over, or at least manageable.
Hmm, this is not good.
Listen, if I get quarantined for two weeks with Mrs X and then I die, I can assure you it was not the virus that killed me. Just saying.
Hey solicitor, make a note. This is my will and testament thingummybob.
If I am found dead covered in coffee granules, I am leaving nothing to her – except my overdraft.
Ha! Our lawman’s going to be on the phone later to ask how serious I am because it’s in writing.
Deadly serious, John. Unless it is ground coffee from a cafetiere – in which case I will leave her a few lottery tickets I forgot to check. Don’t say I didn’t think about you, dear.
I think about that wonderful army of volunteers who venture out to ensure vulnerable people don’t go without.
They provide a wonderful service. The local ones here on the Isle of Lewis are fantastic.
They phone up the old people, and those unable to shop for themselves, and ask what they need.
I heard last week about an old lady from Shawbost who was asked what groceries she wanted and said she wanted the religious pizza from Tesco.
The volunteer was baffled and asked if she was sure about that.
She was, because her friend had got one of that supermarket’s Jesus pizzas. Off went the helpful but doubtful volunteer and she could see no religious-looking topped flatbreads in that aisle.
She then asked an assistant if they sold religious pizza.
Nope, they hadn’t ever stocked that. They must stock Jesus pizza? No, never.
Just then, one of the younger assistants piped up: “I bet it’s this one they want. It’s not a pizza for Jesus, but it is called Four Cheeses.”
The volunteer lass said to me: “You can just imagine a religious lady being told over the phone about a pizza called Four Cheeses. I laughed so hard the tears ran down my leg.”
Eventually, this lockdown brings tears to everyone’s eyes and we will all sometimes do things that are a wee bit, er, random.
When I am at home with nothing to do, I get just a wee bit crazy as well. And a wee bit hungry.
So much so that inanimate objects take on a life of their own. The other night, I was walking past the fridge when I thought I heard an onion singing a Bee Gees song.
That’s a bit odd, I thought. When I yanked open the door it was just a chive talking.
So many people at all levels in life are deeply affected and it’s so good that, rather than stay in the house, some go out and do safe work when they can.
We’ve just had a decorator in to do some socially distanced work.
I got chatting to him through the window and it turns out that he’s a Loganair pilot who has been furloughed and he’s earning a bit of extra cash.
He made a lovely job of the landing.