Coronavirus: What I have in common with an oyster

Any noise annoys an oyster and a noisy noise annoys an oyster most.

The stress of this coronavirus business is getting to us all, apparently. Around the world, those of us not on the front line of this battle are left stumbling around at home not quite knowing what to do with ourselves. Our amygdala are busy preparing us to run away from bears by releasing the necessary survival hormones into our systems while our governments are telling us to stay in and behavour ourselves. This is confusing us at a fundamental level.

The confusion is manifesting itself in bizarre dreams, uncharacteristic episodes of baking, and quivering lips in the previously unmoved. In my case, it’s irritation, annoyance and carnaptiousness.

In the spirit of better out than in, here’s what’s getting my goat at the moment:

• Narrative about ill people ‘fighting’ back to health. The suggestion being that those who died simply didn’t put their backs into the fighting business properly.
• People saying ‘if I’m honest’. I’m kinda hoping they’re honest most of the time.
• The sound people when they eat. It’s really loud.
• People talking over each other on Zoom/HouseParty/Skype.
• The broadband not understanding that me doing yoga is far more important than Fortnite or YouTube.
• The inability of people to see things in the fridge (or elsewhere) particularly half empty things.
• Other people’s possessions.
• Other people in the bit of the house that I want to be in, when I want to be there.
• Feeling cross.
• Wanting to eat everything but not being hungry.
• Bags for life. We have enough for our lives, our children’s lives and their children’s lives.
• Having a discussion about why we need to keep more than 20 allen keys. We don’t.
• The fact that tidying up makes such a mess.
• People not listening to me.
• Children saying “reeeeee”, without explaining what it means.
• Not achieving everything anything I hope to.
• Not achieving anything.
• Not writing.
• Being really cross with people.
• The way people approach me with caution when I’m cross with them.
• People not doing chores.
• People moaning about doing too many chores.
• People getting cross when I make noise while they’re Zooming.
• People making noise while I’m Zooming.
• Social media posts of domestic smugness.
• It being too late in the day when I finally get round to doing domestic things.
• People listening to loud memes on Facebook.
• All the things I can’t do.
• People sniffing loudly.
• Realising that lack of time is not the reason for lack of achievement – it’s my own failure to get my act together.
• People being short-tempered.
• Being short-tempered.
• People laughing at my short-temperedness.
• Inexplicably finding myself stalking people on social media.
• Dog owners not picking up their pets’ poo.
• People not putting things away.
• Mask wearers in shops thinking it makes them invincible/invisible.
• Dust.
• Hair – the sheer volume that falls out of people’s heads when they’re in the house all the time.
• People who don’t believe that I’m right.
• People who do believe I’m right, but don’t listen to my rightness.

*People may in some cases refer to the individuals with whom I am stuck.