Remember back in the good ole days when the kids would go back to school, you did the happy dance, and days later everything came to a crashing halt with one email. THAT email. This is your school, and we are bringing it to your attention, that a case of lice was detected in your child’s classroom.
That itchy, scratchy little bugger that brought screams and cries and threatened to end the world. Well, not really the world, just your world. Disgusting, yes, harmless, yes, but no one ever died of a case of head lice. Even back in 1492 when Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue, his crew may have been overrun with lice but everyone survived, that bug anyway.
Fast forward six hundred or so years later, and that same little itchy, scratchy bug just got upstaged by an even smaller bug. A microscopic, global, serial killer bug, that has pretty much ended life as we know it. Wouldn’t it be nice to get a call about lice instead of Covid 19?
So yep, here we all are, second year teachers with no pay, all suffering from a little too much together time! But there are some perks, really, trust me! No kids in the classroom, scratch lice off your list of worries, no pun intended. With no school kids to latch onto, that little bloodsucking, head bug may very well become extinct like a dodo bird!
Also, that dreaded lunch you hated to pack everyday? You don’t have to worry about packing that thing anymore, instead you get to cook three meals a day and multiple snacks to feed the ever hungry like every hour. Packing that lunch that never got eaten isn’t so bad compared to your new life as a short order, never ending cook. Think how your household is single-handedly fueling the economy. Instacart, Uber Eats, Postmates, you are employing dozens of people to funnel a never ending supply of food straight to your kids mouths, lowering unemployment with every bite.
And think of all the time and money you are saving on clothes. Your kids will never need shoes again! We live in the south so barefoot treat or tricking is completely acceptable and maybe if they make the nice list, Santa will stuff a brand new pair of $2 Wal-Mart flip flops in their stockings for Christmas. They’ll be ok, it only snows once or so. And they don’t have to walk for miles in the snow like us Boomers did. Those brand new pants, you don’t have to worry about the knees getting blown out at recess or getting some good ole Georgia red clay ground in there forever that no OxyClean can take away. Your kid can wear the same stained, outgrown t-shirt for a good three days, heck, the whole week and no one will even care!
And you're in luck! When the virtual school day ends, you can celebrate with the perfect social distancing happy hour, it will come right to your front door! Georgia passed a new law that makes it legal to order beer and wine online. When USP arrives, the party starts, cheers to that!
We are living through history, isn’t that hard to believe? Someday our kids’ kids will read about this in textbooks, what will they think? Will they understand what it’s like to be in quarantine, to have virtual school, to not be able to go to a restaurant or play your favorite sport for months? We are living the history of tomorrow and one day our tale will be told and some kid will fail the pop quiz on the Pandemic of 2020.
Like the rest of the world, our big summer bucket list trip to Italy, Croatia and Greece was canceled because of Covid. On our way to Italy, we had an 11 hour layover in Amsterdam and had tickets to visit the Anne Frank house. Before Covid, I don’t think my kids would have really cared much, but now we discuss it, a lot. Anne was the same age as my oldest child when her family went into hiding. At 13 years old, she and her family hid in a secret attic, only 450 square feet, for 761 days. Our true government ordered shelter in place lasted less than 60 days and we could walk around our house, swim in our pool, play in the backyard and drive to get take-out. Anne had a serious quarantine, over two years in a tiny space then discovered and taken away to die still a teen.
2020 will not go down in history as one of the best years of my life, but I’m learning, I’m appreciating, and enjoying my time with my kids who are growing up way too fast. With a little humor, we WILL get through this and laugh how nice it would be to get a letter about lice!
Lisa Lossie is an Emmy Award Winning former television writer/producer. She writes about mom life and blogs about travel when not quarantined by a global pandemic. Follow her travel blog http://instagram.com/blondie_on_board/