Covid-19 and the Unexplained

Or, when MS brain fog has too much time on its hands

During this scary time of self-isolation, it’s important to keep your brain active and discover new things.

This morning I discovered that my right thumb has a weird curve to it.

Huh….

When did that happen?

How come I’ve never noticed it before?

I would show you but what I haven’t yet discovered is how to use my left hand to take a picture of my right thumb.

Actually, this pandemic has gotten me thinking about words like paranormal, supernatural and phenomenon.

Paranormal-events beyond the normal scope of scientific understanding

Supernatural-a manifestation attributed to a force beyond the laws of nature

Phenomena- a situation that is observed to happen but whose cause is in question

The reason for this is that I’ve also discovered that I have a ghost.  And it’s either not very smart or very, very grouchy.

The first thing it did was break my TV.

Yes, my TV is so old I can’t remember when or where I got it.

It’s so old that I had to buy a special entertainment center for it to fit in and it’s so heavy I can’t even lift it.

It’s so old that you can’t replace it.

When it died my mom said, “it probably just needs a new picture tube.”

Can you even buy picture tubes anymore?  Would the kid at the hardware store know what a picture tube is?  And what do you do with a picture tube once you have it?

Luckily for me, my friend had an extra flat screen TV.

(Who keeps extra TV’s lying around?)

Well my friend did and as my TV died on the first day of the self-isolation period, she wasn’t too worried about coming to my apartment to bring it to me.

Thank you, my extra TV having friend!

So much for your ineptitude, my newly discovered ghost.

But then the ghost forgot how to use the microwave oven and broke that too!

I’d never realized how much I use my microwave and I certainly deemed it essential.  Thankfully, Best Buy is open for extremely important necessities and, after two properly protected, six feet apart, curbside visits I had a new microwave. (The ghost felt that the first one I bought wasn’t working to its full potential.)

Then, it was my hairdryer.   What would I do without a hairdryer for all my upcoming Zoom meetings?

That too seemed essential and CVS carries essential products so while I went looking for TP, disinfectant wipes and hand sanitizer, I carefully, and without touching anything or anyone, maneuvered how to pick up and purchase a new hairdryer.

No TP, sanitizer or wipes though.

The ghost remained grouchy and next burned out a light bulb.  Since light bulb burnouts are common, even when you don’t have a ghost, though this lightbulb burnout was DEFINITELY caused by my just discovered ghost, I had extra.

My cell phone has been incredibly slow at charging and tells me I’m not using the right charger.  When it told me that in February, I went to Verizon and spent $40 on a new charger and things had been fine.  Until my ghost got grouchy.

And now my laptop is also slow, meaning my ghost is completely sick of having me hanging around all the time.

Plus, every time I put on a clean pair of socks I find a hole in them.

What does my ghost have against clean socks?

But the supernatural does not stop there.

Here are some other things that I’ve realized are the result of the paranormal effects of this pandemic.

I really did not like a haircut I got in February.  Since the self-isolation, my hair has grown into its own.  For five weeks, I’ve loved my hair when I don’t have any need for good hair.  When this is over, and a good haircut would be appreciated, it will probably be time for a new cut which I’ll hate.

The experts keep telling us to stay home except to buy essentials.  But whenever I go out for essentials, I have to go to 5-6 places only to discover there are no essentials to be had.

This phenomenon speaks for itself but why isn’t there any toilet paper?  Now that everyone is home all the time, we need toilet paper more than ever. Yet there’s not much toilet paper to be had.

If I was the President, I would deem all employees of the toilet paper factory essential workers and tell them to, socially distancing of course, make more toilet paper.

Have you ever noticed that the more time you have to do stuff the less you actually do?  The last several weeks has only increased my ‘to do ‘lists. I’ve even had to make a new ‘to do’ list to keep track of all my other ‘to do’ lists.  Still, I haven’t really ‘to do’ed’ much of anything.

Before social distancing was ordered, I was going to the gym.  I was taking 2 classes, learning strength training and sweating through cardio.  This required me to leave my house by 7:30 (in the freaking morning!) twice a week to get to the gym in time for the first class, and not return home for four hours.

And I did it.

Regularly.

But somehow the supernatural elements of this crisis will not allow me to spend even twenty minutes on a YouTube workout video in the comfort of my own home.

I’ve heard it suggested that now is a great time to try a healthy, new recipe.

How?

It’s hard enough to get any ingredients never mind healthy ones.

And what each store has none of or extra of never seems to make sense in the natural world.

Last Saturday my local grocery was chock a block full of fresh looking produce. But self-isolating alone, and being on a budget, means I can’t buy a lot of fresh produce as it goes to waste before I can eat it all.

Yet, there wasn’t a frozen vegetable or fruit anywhere.  The frozen healthy stuff section was as barren as the cleaning products section.

People tease me but thankfully I was quite well stocked with frozen dinners before all this started.  And it was under some of those boxes that I found a roll of frozen cookie dough.  Major score!

But please don’t tell my ghost.

For me, I think the hardest thing to explain, amidst all this unexplainable, is that the words “soon enough,” as in, things will be back to normal “soon enough,” doesn’t mean “soon enough” at all.

Please stay healthy and safe my friends.

And if you’re bored, might I suggest binge watching The X-Files and learning how to be a ghost hunter during this most paranormal of times?

What questionable discoveries have you discovered in the last five weeks?

Definitions loosely provided by Google