Oh, nice, the termites have announced spring!

Today my boss woke me up by calling. I had ignored his text for two hours, but just because the world is upside down doesn’t mean I’m getting up any earlier than usual, Jesus. He said “Where are you?” and I said “What do you mean? I’m at home!”. “oh, right. your favorite place”. He said it jokingly, so I guess it was just some kind of weird crack at how I hate going to work….

Anyhow, I got up and was trying to act like I hadn’t only just risen from bed and was totally alert. He ended up giving me a ton of stuff to work on. Not much of it related to my regular job, but his girlfriend does tutoring out of their house. Now that all of this has happened and schools are closed her business is blowing up, so she is making it all online and adding teachers, etc. So I will be helping out with some of that I guess. Which is fine, it beats not getting paid or having complete uncertainty. Sure, a lot of not work stuff went on today, but at least I was productive enough to feel like I was doing my job.

As he was rattling off a list of stuff for me to do, I noticed a bunch of flies ambling out of the crack in my baseboard. soon, hundreds. Apparently the annual termite swarms have begun. Usually there are at least two rounds where literally hundreds of termites hatch and fill my living room. It’s like a horror movie watching it, but in truth they can’t really fly yet and vacuum up quite easily, you just have to wait for the procession to end, which is annoying.

I wanted to get off the phone and get to work on them, but every year I call in to work and use termite swarms as an excuse to miss work. I always make it seem like I am battling an utterly horrific infestation that takes a solid day of concentrated fighting. I felt like I couldn’t bring myself to interrupt him on the phone and be like “Holy shit, TERMITE SWARM, GOTTA GO!!” because then it would sound almost like calling in sick on a stay at home day anyway. So, whatever. I rode out the call as the termite army assembled at my feet. Half an hour later everything was fine. It will probably happen at least once more in the next week or so though. It also alerted me to the fact that my floors could really use a mopping.

In case you are wondering, my landlord is well aware of the termite situation. He tried getting rid of them years ago and it was very expensive and clearly did not work. So now his attitude is kind of like ‘fuck it, it will take them years to chew through the floor’. He is not worried about the resale value of the house, because if someone buys this place they are in it for the lot. The house would be bulldozed and apartments would be built.

The only other noteworthy thing to happen is my old neighbor texted me. They moved out in November I think. I have a couple of packages for them and some mail. They already know what is in the packages and I have been holding on to them for months. Occasionally we talk about meeting up for drinks to do the exchange, but had never set up anything concrete until a week or two ago. We were supposed to meet tomorrow. I had just assumed this was off since bars are closed, and because just in general,… duh. But she wanted to know if we were still on. I responded that ‘I’m actually taking this social distancing thing somewhat seriously, so maybe reschedule?’ and she texted back that they were taking it seriously too, and okay, maybe next week or something….Next week? This thing isn’t going to be over then.. Way to take it seriously.

Then an hour later she asked me if I wanted to come over Saturday for dinner, a couple of their other friends I know will be there too. It actually sounds delightful, but seriously, what the fuck? Why do you choose, quite literally, the worst time in history to want to hang out???!!! She must be going stir crazy. I feel like I’m being punked or something.

I told her I would look at my bicycle tomorrow, and if the tires will stay inflated ( if I can find my pump to put air in them) I might be into it, but I am not willing to take a train or a car. Under normal circumstances I would just walk, but the streets are so empty at night that I feel sketched out. Especially with tension and anxiety / financial worries at an all time high, you never know, and I don’t want to find out.

It’s weird though. It totally feels like being dared to do something, or tempting fate. I am sure it would be fine. But would it? Also, they are Millennials, and they are fitting so perfectly into the stereotype of people that think because they are young and healthy it’s no big deal, and then they become total carriers.

Now I sound like a cranky gen x’er shaking my fist in the air.

So yeah, I don’t think I will be going.