In Case of Emergency: Drain Glass

As days blend together and we look ahead towards one of the palest Aprils on record, I read we should search for senses of achievement. It’s nice to feel like we’ve done something, and that can be difficult while staying in all day.

So, I found myself struggling to populate a Monday crossword from December. Using pen like the daredevil I am, my errors were all the more glaring. Frustrated by its Wednesday magnitude, I cast the paper down and cursed Will Shortz. Sure, there should be natural fluctuation in difficulty due to one’s personal knowledge gaps, but I swear this one was a doozie. Plus, the newsprint dirtied my trousers.

I could have avoided this. I could have watched tv instead of allowing my intellectual insecurity to goad me into a doomed ego trip. I could have thrown out the newspaper from December, or I could have shown true wisdom and used a pencil, for I know nothing.

Nevertheless, such was my predicament on day something of shelter-in-place.

This particular Monday Arts came from the three-to-four-foot stack of newspapers by our apartment’s front door. The pile used to serve as our foyer table: it held keys, gloves, the odd hat. These days, it’s our sanitary airlock: it holds Purell and Clorox wipes. It sits just before our holding pen, our Florida, the part of the hallway where we let theoretical viruses live out their final 24 hours on all cardboard we bring into the home.

The pile gives the hall a frazzled professor aesthetic, we claim. In the back of our mind, too, has long been an idea that these newspapers could some day be “useful.”  Plus, is eBay still buying newspapers from historic occasions?

We never predicted our current predicament, but I am now thrilled to have all this yellowing wood pulp “just in case.” A stack of Monday crosswords seemed a prime candidate to give me a sense of achievement amidst this uncertainty.

Our “just in case” stockpile extends far beyond newspapers. We have three different sizes of rubber spatula, frozen carrots-n-peas, two ethernet cables, thirteen types of allen wrench, dozens of to-go packets of ranch, and much more.

This may sound like hoarding. It’s not, because in reality apartments and houses are “just a pile of stuff with a cover on it,” per George Carlin. So, these stockpiles are why we pay rent.

In our attempts to stymie the spread of this virus, somewhere around 75% of all Americans are now being asked to stay at home to keep an eye on their stuff. The Marie Kondo acolytes may find themselves bored with no toys, while we, the disciples of the Brothers Collyer have hours and hours of activities at our fingertips.

As Americans come to terms with the realities of social distancing, we must understand that “just in case” refers to this.

“In case of emergency, break glass” is a much more closed set of instructions than the more popular “let’s keep it, just in case.” In a world of unanticipated pandemics, the latter seems a better mantra. Let’s keep things open-ended.

Hopefully, the panic-buying phase will subside in favor of the stock-up-to-limit-outside-trips phase. I live a block from a colossal grocery store, so I used to just run out for individual items. Now, I keep a long and thorough list.

No longer can I cavalierly laugh “I must jaunt to the vintner, for we have depleted our vermouth.” The age of the six pack is over. The time of the 30 rack has come, to paraphrase Gothmog, Lieutenant of Morgul.

On Saturday, I spent a few hours Zooming a few close friends from college. Actually, we used Google Hangouts, but Zoom is the Kleenex of videochat, the Xerox of quarantine. At precisely 5:00 PM, no sooner, I opened the fridge to grab a beer. I didn’t really fancy anything we had stocked up, but I couldn’t go outside. I turned to our liquor cart and made a decision based not on what I wanted to drink but what I could afford to finish.

I poured myself a gin and pickle juice, and I chatted with a friend who was stir frying sausage, beans, and kale for dinner. I’d rather not speak for him, but I don’t think either of us got our first choice.

We can best limit trips by rationing, the opposite of hoarding. Hoarding concerns resource accrual and retention ahead of unexpected events, while rationing concerns resource allocation after the arrival of the unexpected.

A couple hours later, and a couple fingers of brandy left me fortified against consumption. The world will keep spinning if we’re out of brandy, so it’s better to try to run out of that than critical items like Oreos, scented candles, or, heaven forfend, coffee.

In the apartment forever with all of my stuff, I can either go crazy, or I can remember why we own these things in the first place. I can reacquaint myself with antiquated spirits or niche stirs fry. Plus, if my jar of cloves and packets of ranch remain unopened after all this, I will know that they didn’t spark joy even “in case,” so I will thank them for their service and say goodbye.

Until then, I’m grateful to be comfortable in my apartment, surrounded by all my beloved stuff. In fact, I’ve just emptied seven packets of crushed red pepper that I pilfered from Lou Malnati’s into our nearly empty CRP shaker. Tomorrow, I’ll refill our soy sauce bottle with packets from our last sushi order. The anticipation is unbearable.