By: Corrina Servos | November 16, 2020
It’s 11:45am. You’ve just woken up, made yourself a nice breakfast while chatting with your dorm mates, and are now getting ready to walk to the academic building for your first class of the day. As you gather your binder, laptop, and other class supplies, you mentally run yourself through a checklist so that you don’t forget anything. Laptop? Check. Phone? Check. Textbook? Check. Keys so that you can get back into the dorm? Check. Satisfied with your checklist, you zip up your backpack and head out the door. It’s a beautiful day outside, the sun is shining, and the warm air puts a little extra spring in your step. It’s a good day for a good day. You’ve got lots of time to get to your class, so you walk slowly and take your time getting to the academic building. As you near the front doors, you begin to feel a little uneasy. Did you forget something? You’re on time and you have everything you need for your class… right? Suddenly, it dawns on you. The dang mask. You forgot your mask. Without it, you can’t enter the academic building (or any building, for that matter!) Your good day no longer feels so good as you turn around and begin to run back to your dorm. It’s 11:55. In the next few minutes, you prove that it is possible to run from the academic building, across campus, and back in approximately 300 seconds. Hot, sweaty, and out of breath, you finally make it to your class. You’re flustered, tired, and annoyed, but your mask is on and all is right with the world.
Most (if not all) of us, can relate to this. Unless you’re extremely lucky, there has probably been at least one time in the past year where you have forgotten to grab that little scrap of fabric on the way out the door. Maybe not all of us have performed the campus sprint back to our dorms to get the mask that we forgot, but there has probably been a situation in the last year where you went out and had to do a 180 at some point to grab your mask. On the other hand, some of us are probably guilty of walking out of a building and continuing on with our days, forgetting we’re still wearing a mask. Most of us have probably experienced observing someone cough and immediately thinking “COVID!” because apparently a person can’t get a regular cold anymore. How many gallons of hand sanitizer have you used during this pandemic? Have you started to feel like your hands are 50% hand sanitizer by now? If you do, you’re not alone. The past year of living in a pandemic has created situations that everyone finds relatable that wouldn’t have crossed their minds before February 2020.
There are many outdoor activities that people find relatable that they wouldn’t have a year ago. Many people have spent an extreme amount of time outside as a result of the bans on indoor gatherings. It might be relatable when people say that they’ve walked hundreds or thousands of miles outside in the last year, or that they picked up longboarding, or that they played Spikeball for the first time. Most likely, everyone owns a lawn chair or camping chair at this point. There is also a high possibility that you invested in a hammock. Everyone is familiar with the concept of sitting outside in the freezing cold, just because it is the only way to see their friends. Nearly freezing to death is relatable now! If you’re a girl who enjoys internet shopping, you’ve probably debated buying an Oodie (a blanket sweater) online. Or maybe you already did, in preparation for the snow to start falling.
When you’re in a supermarket now and see rows of toilet paper, the thought has probably crossed your mind to splurge and buy as many packages as you can, just in case the world starts ending again. You’ve most likely tried to go shopping and have had to wait for 20 minutes in a line that stretches around the block. You’re probably guilty of not following the floor arrows in supermarkets at least once in the last couple months. Over the months of lockdown, you probably attempted to learn a new hobby or teach yourself a new skill. Or, you were one of the people who caused some stores to run out of flour because of all the bread you were trying to bake. It’s probably crossed your mind to wonder if that nasty cold you had in February was actually Covid, because again, normal colds don’t exist anymore. You’ve probably given longing looks to the printer you bought for university, realizing that it will probably never be used this semester… or next semester…
If any of these things are resonating with you, you’re probably not alone! We’ve all been living through the same pandemic and have probably all been adjusting in similar ways. If nothing else, this past year has given us many things that are easy to relate to and that will be easy to laugh about in the future.