Doing nothing never felt so productive

I’m no hero but I’m trying to do my part while staying in my lane.

I’m staying at home. I’m getting some takeout. I’m doing curbside pickup or home delivery for groceries as much as possible. I’m calling a local brewery to place an order, then pulling up to the front door and someone comes out and puts beer in my trunk.

But this is my seventh week of writing coronavirus-related columns and not once have I offered anything even remotely helpful, useful or interesting.

I have given zero good advice on how to not get sick, what to do if you do get sick, how to help those who do get sick, or how to support those who are caring for those who do get sick.

I have not offered helpful information on how to shop for essentials, how to cope with isolation, how to cut your own hair, or how to inject light into your body, you know, just in case that works as a cure.

I’m here just doing my part by doing nothing. Oh, except eating. I’m ordering chocolate covered almonds by the kilo. By the kilo-and-a-half, to be accurate. And little chocolate cookies by the case.

I’m actually getting concerned that when the day comes that they tell me I can go out again, I’ll be a little wistful. I shouldn’t say it out loud but, I mean, I kind of like not having to argue or whine when my wife wants me to go to Marshalls with her.

And, of course when I say I’m doing “nothing” I’m not really doing nothing. Isn’t it impossible to do nothing? I’m pretty sure it is unless you’re my wiener dog, Eddie. He excels at nothing.

It feels like I’m doing nothing but I’m finding things to do here and there. Aren’t we all? Some people have turned to bread baking. Some people are trying to learn to play an instrument. Some people are riding exercise bikes or making hilarious dance videos for TikTok.

I’ve done some exercise during this lockdown. I’ve gone old school and done pushups — 10 of them … in just seven weeks.

I found something super fun to do last weekend. I started clearing the clutter in our basement.

We have boxes and boxes of stuff, most are labelled “Miscellaneous Junk” and one is labelled “Books” even though, clearly, three of the “Miscellaneous Junk” boxes are also full of books.

These boxes are stacked on shelves or on top of one another in most of our available basement space. Mostly they are out of sight and out of mind under the stairs or in a small storage room. I’m sure it could be a more useful room but it’s not like I want to create a cozy book nook in my basement. I don’t need to be down there reading Charlotte’s Web to actual spiders.

But our cluttered storage space does become an issue when something happens — like this past Christmas when we opted to get an artificial tree. It was great until the holidays were over, when the nightmare of where to put this tree hit hard.

After some wrestling, I managed to stuff the tree mostly back into its original box then tucked it on top of a pile of other boxes in our storage space.

Basically, my basement is a room-sized reverse Jenga. And it’s fine until we need to get something that we just know is in there somewhere. I truly shudder if my wife asks, “Do we have a potato masher?”

I’ve made some progress. I’ve moved quite a few boxes from the storage room and it looks more neat and tidy now. Unfortunately, the boxes are now stacked in a spare bedroom. I haven’t solved any problems. I’ve just moved them.

I’d like to say that when tackling a monster of a job like this, the most important step is the first one. That sounds almost inspiring. In reality, the most important step is locating the box of Sports Illustrated swimsuit issues from your pre-marriage days and making it disappear quickly before anyone else decides to pitch in and help sort through this mess.

It’s labelled “Miscellaneous Junk.”