20 (lighthearted) Quarantine Side Effects

So this year has hit us hard. Our minds. Our bodies. Romantic lives. Social lives. Spiritual lives. Our Amazon budget..... and streaming service(s) budget. Our bangs (r.i.p.). And the list goes on.

Although the hope is that we didn't have to experience Covid symptoms (or the loss of someone we love to Covid), we still had to endure

Quarantine Symptoms

Which include, but are not limited to, the following. Other side effects may apply. Consult with a doctor if you are feeling extreme sadness, anger, or the urge to "accidentally run over your neighbor's yappy dog."

1. Being so deprived of physical touch that when a random man or woman brushes your arm while passing you at the grocery store, you have an orgasm.

2. Watching a TV show that you've seen multiple times (F.R.I.E.N.D.S. duh) and when the characters leave the apartment you have a quick thought like "ummmm excuse me.... where is your fucking mask?"

3. Feeling like you've wasted a year of your life not going to bars and only sitting on a couch and watching Netflix– like you wouldn't have done those things anyway.

4. Masturbating so often to the point of chronic hand pain.

5. Wearing sweat pants for a month straight that when you finally try to take them off you realized they have become a permanent part of your legs.

6. Endlessly scrolling until your thumb goes into autopilot when you pick up any item– like a banana, a coffee cup, your dirty socks off the floor, your shampoo bottle, your parent's disappointment in you – uh, I mean– wait what? What were we talking about?

7. Searching the internet about how to become a nun.... cause 1. free lodging 2. you aren't having sex anyway 3. cute dress, mother Susan 4. you already like telling people to go to hell, now it can be justified.

8. Listening to both Taylor Swift and Harry Styles' music so much that you dream regularly that you are in a threesome with those two angels. And come on, they'd be lucky to have you.

9. Running out of clean masks that don't have makeup all over them or that smell like your coffee breath, so you make do with cutting up a sock (this one is clean though) and enduring Lucas from the corner store and his comments, like– "I didn't know I could judge you more"

10. Being so bored that you start performing extensive movie scenes in front of the mirror you must pay the rent style, with costume changes and everything for each character.

11. Missing sex so much that when you ordered a sandwich at Subway you started tingling down south after saying, "a twelve-inch, please." And then you really had to refrain from tacking on "daddddy."

12. Watching reruns of a sitcom so much that you start to believe that they are your friends too, which is fine at first, you shake it off and continue on with your mundane Netflix binging routine until Christmas comes around and you are online shopping for gifts, and then you come across something, like a purse with the more colorful tassels than you can count, so you add it to your shopping bag while whispering under your breath, "Pheobe would really love this, I know Chandler will make fun of her for it, but that's why we love him."

13. Running out of hand sanitizer so you decide to start doing "a little tequila on the lips, another on the mitts."

14. Seeing how long you can go without shaving your legs that the length is now braidable.

15. Learning all the choreography to every song from High School Musical, just to relive your childhood.

16. Still making time for happy hour every day after work(ing from home).

17. Reading old texts with your BFF making fun of your ex for getting a quarantine pet – while you stroke your new kitten(s) and eat peanut butter from a spoon.

18. [[[[;.l, 8uy7yu09

(My cat just ran across my keyboard. This somehow seems fitting to my mental state. Let's call it a side effect.)

19. Feeling so confused about time that when someone new asks how old you are, you say "23" when you both know you are 25, but if they ever challenge you, you can say how weird this year has been and you have forgotten your last few birthdays and time is a blur and do calendars mean anything anywayyyyy?????

20. Fuck it... start writing on the internet and see if anyone digs it.