I recently left quarantine after spending two weeks in Riverview Building D, room 202. At least, I think it was two weeks. Time gets a little funny when you’re alone for that long… well, it does when you’re alone and high for that long.
The first day started with a five-hour drive. Like most people, I don’t believe in drinking and driving; unlike most people, when I say drinking I mean literally anything. If you drink, you have to pee, and stopping to pee is anxiety-inducing during the end of the world. It really does feel like the apocalypse these days. I’m impressed that the Mayans were only off by eight years on the world’s expiration date.
So after five pleasant hours I reached Riverview, and was told to go into Building D and not come out. Finding D was surprisingly difficult despite the broad daylight, though I’m not sure if that was because of poor signage or dizziness brought on by dehydration. Or maybe it was just because D is smaller than most of the other buildings.
That day and the next few were relatively boring. I woke up; I tried to go back to sleep. I failed because the beds in Riverview might as well be metal slaps with plastic blue tarps over them. Then I got high, which was nice and time consuming and relaxing — until my mom called. I can always count on my mom to call me at the worst times. I’m not mad, though, because she also made me bring pancake mix to quarantine, which created three whole activities. First you make dinner, then you eat it, then you get to clean it up. If you want to try it on hard mode, take a few shots first.
If this is beginning to feel like a rambling mess, that’s good, because quarantine feels more or less like one long run-on sentence that just keeps going and going and going and going until suddenly, before you realize it, you’re out of food. Which breaks up the monotony. Fortunately, the very kind food runners will startle you out of your daze with an ominous knock on the door, but no matter how fast you go to answer, you always just miss any chance of human contact, as they leave no traces besides someone else’s dinner. I guess that is the whole point — to not have any contact. Huh.
Another thing that happens in quarantine is you start to get a headache. Maybe it’s the boredom, or the obscene amount of screen time, or the dehydration. Don’t worry, this is different dehydration from earlier — I drank water. This one happens when you masturbate too many times in a row.
Regardless of the admittedly minor ways in which quarantine has taxed my body and major ways it has taxed my social skills and soul, I am incredibly glad to be leaving it.
I can’t wait to hang out in dorm rooms and go to parties… Wait.
Shit.
Editors note (9/2/20): In a previous version of this article, the author’s mom was named. She did not like this.
