Is it about to get weird? It’s about to get weird, isn’t it?
Many people, having spent the past year and a half largely at home to avoid the old COVID-19 pandy, are about to get thrown back into the in-person daily grind of school or work life. It’s like we’re all headed to family reunions with long-lost relatives, except some of us will be wearing masks, and others will be eating horse medicine. How could it not get weird?
All those young kids whose parents kept them home for online learning last year are saying tearful goodbyes to their iPads and heading back to class. Many workplaces that shifted to full-time work-from-home are transitioning back to in-person work, at least partially, as summer wanes and a September of reduced health restrictions approaches. All those university students who paid $15,000 last year to watch some 75-year-old prof try to figure out how to Zoom are now unpacking in their new dorm rooms – after spending the last 18 months making zero new friends, they now have 165 new best friends.
So many people will be reintegrating into society over the next week or two, finally shedding those sweat pants that they’ve worn approximately every day since the pandemic started. Oh you sweet, sweet, brave sweat pants.
You see ... here I am, getting all sentimental about a truly filthy pair of pants. Again, how can these next couple of weeks not get weird?
My kids are heading back to school next week, and I don’t know if they’re ready for it. Or more precisely, I don’t know if my school is ready for them.
Since the pandemic hit, my kids have basically functioned in three modes: sports, screens, and destroy. Sport mode has been their saving grace through this whole thing, their teammates giving them that tenuous tie to society that has kept them from going full bonkers. Screen mode was always hardwired into their base programming, but it jumped several levels last year when much of their schooling was conducted by iPad. They fell down so many rabbit holes while watching secret YouTube videos instead of doing school work over the past 18 months that I’m surprised they’re not asking me to get them the horse medicine.
And when they’re not in screen or sport mode, my kids are simply bent on playing with each other so hard that any piece of furniture, nearby garden feature, passing car or unsuspecting neighbour is in danger of being smashed to bits as they whirl about each other like cartoon Tasmanian devils. Seriously though, I don’t understand how they play so hard with each other. Every game becomes a sort of death match within the first 20 seconds. Any nearby window is liable to be smashed by a random ski boot. And where did that ski boot come from? It’s August!!
I don’t know. Is this a pandemic thing? Does anyone else have kids who now spend any bit of free time exploding like a truck full of fireworks?
And adults integrating back into society might not be in much better shape. How many of you have encountered the handshake that turned into a fist bump that turned back into a handshake that ended with some random person open-hand shaking your closed fist? I know I have, and I’m very glad no one recorded it on video.
I recently spent time in an office setting that was still physically distanced but contained more co-workers than I’d seen since the before times. I also thought it would be a good idea to bring some delicious homemade cauliflower soup to eat in the lunchroom in this office. I even got so far as to crack the lid on my cauliflower soup and was moments away from throwing it into the microwave when I realized that in some jurisdictions, the smell of that microwaved soup wafting through a crowded office would be grounds for dismissal.
Add on top of all this that there still is, you know, a pandemic out there, and kids like mine are still unvaccinated, as are the bleach-drinking people, as are the “masks are communism” people, as are the people who are protesting at hospitals so they can yell at nurses. ... So yeah, it seems like it’s about to get weird, is what I’m saying.
You may not have heard this for a while, but I think it still applies: be kind, be calm, be safe. And take it easy on the horse medicine.
Andy Prest is the sports and features editor of the North Shore News. His lifestyle/humour column runs biweekly. [email protected]
