I’m rather wistful this morning. Here are two things that I’ve been missing HARD because of the pandemic:
- Wearing fancy earrings. I have a whole drawer full of golden hoops, tortoise shell danglies, leather teardrops, and Kendra Scott knockoffs that are slowly going out of style. Instead, I’m donning studs, BORING, because I am fearful of losing an earlobe when tearing my mask off my face after class ends. Have you ever ripped a piercing wide open? I have— between freshman and sophomore year of college waiting tables at my cousin’s restaurant. I bussed a table using a big Rubbermaid container and brought it back to the dishwashing area. As I was setting it down, its lip got caught on my belly button ring and ripped that senior-year-in-high-school-spring-break-bad-decision right out. I screamed. It hurt like hell. For years the top of my bellybutton looked like it had floppy devil horns hanging upside down from it. I don’t want my ears to suffer the same fate. Occasionally I’ll sport my fancy earrings anyway when I want to live on the wild side or simply forget the dangers of fancy earring wearing. The only upside to wearing them is if you wear hoops. Then at least when you take your mask off, the hoopies catch the elastic and your mask can hang like a hammock from them if you don’t feel like putting your mask on your desk.
- Name brand hand sanitizer. All I want for Christmas is some Germ-X or Purell. That cheap shit smells like tequila, and by nine a.m., WHILE I’M TEACHING CHILDREN, all I can think about is a giant top-shelf margarita. I’ve had to stop myself mid lesson from sniffing it because I’m all nostalgic for bygone Friday afternoon happy hours with my teacher friends. It’s not fair that my classroom smells like a Mexican restaurant when it’s unsafe to even patronize (Patrón-ize?) one currently. So if you walk past my classroom door and see me fondling a bottle of GermsNoMore and bringing it lovingly up to my nose, I might need you to come in and confiscate it and replace it with some chips and salsa, thank you very much.
If you need me for anything this Thanksgiving break, you can find me in my backyard wearing my favorite tortoise shell oversized hoopies sipping a massive margarita in my not-yet-purchased hammock.
What are the random things that you miss, friends?