The confusion and chaos of going out again
My husband and I went out to dinner for the first time in three months — and it was a horror show. I never want to leave home again.
Re-entry isn’t easy. No one seems to know the rules. Do you wear a face mask when you are outside? How can you wear a face mask when you eat? When you greet someone on the street, do you stay 6 feet away? Does a waitress need to wear gloves? Should we be asking about how the food was prepared? Wait, — how, exactly, the food prepared? The list is endless.
“All I know is that someone else is doing the dishes,” my husband, Ian, confided, as we sat down to dinner at an outdoor restaurant.
Our restaurant’s rule was that we were supposed to wear face masks any time we got up from our table, but that we could take them off while seated.
“What if you decide to STAND at your table, but not leave it?” I asked Ian. “Or move around your table, while eating?”
“Why would you want to move around your table, while eating?” Ian asked calmly.
I don’t know . ... Sudden stomach irritation from ingesting actual food (other than macaroni and cheese) for the first time in 90 days?
Crowd panic, induced by months of quarantine? Realizing that the next table was 5 feet, 11 inches away from your table? Murder hornets? The reasons were endless!
To make matters worse, every restaurant’s rules are apparently different. As we drove down Greenwich Ave., the outdoor seating at all the restaurants was packed, and none of the tables looked like they were 6 feet apart. No one was wearing face masks. It was like we had entered an alternate dimension of mass amnesia. And someone forgot to send us the memo.
Tuesday was our 13th wedding anniversary, and we figured we’d better do something. The only time we have left the house was to take family walks that often ended in mutiny, or to buy food — which, as it turns out, we are buying a lot of these days.
“I just spent $630 at DeCicco’s,” I told my neighbor, from a respectable 10 feet away.
“Oh please,” she shouted, “I can’t get out of a grocery store for under $700! Did we always eat like this?”
Apparently not, because the other challenge of going out to dinner was that none of my clothing fits anymore. I might have to stand at the restaurant table, exposing myself to the aforementioned lack of clarity over whether or not I should have my face mask on ... because I am ... AT my table, but NOT SITTING at my table, as previously discussed. And I’m NOT SITTING because I will SPLIT MY SKIRT. Like every skirt I own.
I realize this has something to do with the fact that my 12-year-old son introduced me to something called the “Golden Oreo,” concurrent with my decision to watch all six seasons of “The Americans” in three weeks.
Something about watching Russian spies raise American children, while living next door to an FBI agent, lends itself to the mass consumption of Golden Oreos. Because I dismantle the cookie and lick its insides first, this obviously meant that I could enjoy twice as many cookies as I would normally consume — because I was eating them in a broken-down fashion, often leaving one of the cookie wafers behind; I was effectively eating only half a cookie. When Louie informed me that Golden Oreos also came in a “double stuffed” variety, it was all over.
To make matters worse, the 13th anniversary “theme gift” is “lace,” so Ian, who has become a diehard observer of this odd, “milestone" tradition, bought me a lace dress.
“At least it wasn’t underwear,” he said, when I informed him that the sizeeight dress made me look like a sea lion in lace.
I finally opted for a pair of oversized culottes, and after I realized I had forgotten how to put on a bra, I settled on a shirt with a built-in situation — and maximum stretch.
“You look beautiful, honey,” Ian told me, as I came downstairs for the fourth time.
“What if you decide to stand at your table, but not leave it?” I asked Ian. “Or move around your table, while eating?”
“Shut up,” I snapped back, like the turtle who snap-lunged at me when I tried to clear the driveway two weeks ago.
I couldn’t find my makeup, which I think may be in the attic of my friend’s skihouse in Vermont, and the concept of wearing anything other than Converse sneakers makes me ill. My 9-year-old’s Mother’s Day card features me with hair that’s brown on top, and yellow at the bottom, just to complete your mental picture.
The truth is: I didn’t want to go out. I am not ready to go out. I have to lose 15 pounds, buy new clothing and find my makeup before I go out. Besides, is it even SAFE to go out?
One of the most confusing elements of this whole ordeal is that I can’t seem to figure out whether I hate being cooped up at home, or if it’s actually my preferred mode of existence. It changes by the hour, you see, which makes things extremely problematic — and presents me with yet another, excellent reason to eat double-stuffed Golden Oreos.
It’s called the “Coronacoaster,” my mother told me, which is defined as
“noun: the ups and downs of a pandemic. One day, you're loving your bubble, going for long walks, baking cakes, and puttering in the garden; the next, you're crying, drinking gin for breakfast, eating party rings, and missing people you don't even like.”
I think that just about sums it up. It’s like, after all this time, we’ve gotten ourselves into some kind of alternate-reality rhythm, and now we are being asked to break out of that — but only sort of. And in an unclear way.
So pass the doublestuffed Oreos, please.