Quarantine Diary #36 4/18/2020 Ten Things I Hate about the Coronavirus Quarantine

1. I hate that each day when I start these diary entries, I have to look up yesterday’s posting to see what number I’m on because it’s too high to stick in my head. Today is #36.  Yes it is.

2. I hate that each day as I read tweets and FB posts and look at the NYT and WaPO and other websites - I HATE that there is always brand new news about the devasting effects of this disease and how poorly the government is responding. 

3. I’m really iffy on religion lately. I see no way any religion makes sense when people in dire poverty will die from this – because how do you social distance when you sleep in a box or six to a one-room shack? To say that my God loves me and that is why I am held in the palm of His hand – means to me that others must be less loved by the divine because they are going to suffer and die like riffraff blowing down the street.  It makes me angry when theology preaches that there is a divine rationale that will even this all out later. 

I believe in community; I believe that kindness is always an act of faith - so most of us need a faith community.

But I hate religion that says. “Don’t worry, God’s got this.”

History says otherwise.

4. I hate that I have not been in a Goodwill store in six weeks. Once, a few months ago, two old guys were shopping together. One held a pack of adult diapers and was earnestly saying to the other, “This price is great. These things are so expensive and she and I both need them, and this will help us out a lot.” There was a whole novel in there and I got tears in my eyes and I miss the poignancy of scrappy people.

5.  I hate that I can’t zip into the grocery store to pick out exactly what we want. Len picked up our order today and instead of bouillon cubes the guy gave us “Bou” brown Gravy maker. Anyone want it?

6. I hate that our groceries come in plastic bags again. We had converted to reusable bags for the groceries and other purchases. We used mesh produce bags instead of those filmy store bags.  And now we are back to plastic bags inside of plastic bags inside of plastic bags.  We throw them all away because the point of having someone else shop for us is to avoid potential virus droplets. But I hate this.

7. I hate that children are stuck inside their homes with their weary and sometimes awful parents.  When I volunteered in a local school   – sometimes at the end of the day the teachers would ask kids to complete the sentence “The best thing that happened today and the hardest thing that happened today.”  And each and every time the “hardest thing” - was having to go home.  These little kids, many of whom had spent rough and frustrating days not understanding or doing their work … these same children would say the worst part of their day was leaving school to go home.  I hate what that represents.  

8. I hate that there are still no comprehensive roll-out of tests to determine who has been exposed and who hasn’t and how to proceed safely.

9. I hate some politicians. Real bad.

10. I hate that The reason Guatemala is now starting their crisis is because more than half of the undocumented Guatemala immigrants we expelled from the US were postive for Covid. So we sent this disease to one of the poorest nations on earth. Good going. Source here. 

What do you hate about living in this time of Coronavirus quarantine?

(Tomorrow I will try to come up with positive things from this quarantine.)