Greetings from shelter-in-place San Francisco, Day 2. Day 2? It’s only Day 2? If the first two days are any indication, this is gonna be a rough slog. We four (five, counting the dog) have not really co-existed under the same roof for several years now–at least not for any meaningful stretch. So we are in the midst of some meaningful, ehm, adjustments. For my part, although I generally work from home (when not sweating with other people in a couple local gyms), I am finding that my thought patterns are beginning to fray. 

This morning, I used a roll of black Gorilla tape to fix a chair (anything to avoid writing, it seems).  This used to be a nice dining room chair, mind you, and I think we paid a decent amount of cash for it maybe 20 years ago along with the rest of the chairs and the table completing the set. Many meaningful, nightly dinners, Holiday meals, birthday celebrations, etc., took place during which this chair played an integral role.  It may even have been the chair with the back slats that one of my kids got his head stuck in, even as I said to him, “Don’t put your head in there, it’ll get stuck.” Well he did and it did. 

Now the chair is relegated to a closet-sized office right next to our garage (not as any sort of punishment for the head-stuck incident).  For the past two days, the closet-sized office is where my wife has been relegated to bill her billable hours, since her actual office is actually closed nowadays. For months (who am I kidding, it’s probably for years), this long-forgotten dining room chair has protested its long-forgottenness by yanking one of its arms out of its socket.  The right arm of the arm chair has been swinging loose–the screw unscrewed–as a trap for the unwary.  We rarely sit in the chair, but when we do, whoooooooooow!, the right side of it gives way and we nearly tumble out onto the floor.  At least this has been my experience. But as I say, the chair is back in action now, and if chairs had feelings, it might be happy. Hilary is down there all day conference-calling and estate-planning and such.  All while balancing precariously on her left side, since the chair’s right cannot be trusted. 

Well I fixed all that this morning (instead of writing). Enter the duct tape. Still in my PJs, I scuffed out into the garage bed-headed, grabbed the rarely-used roll of tape with its dog-hair-and-random-garage-born-unidentifiable-fluffballs stuck to the sides, and strode purposely into the closet-sized office.  I think the chair knew what was coming next. If chairs had feelings, it might have been frightened. I stuck its arm back in the socket, then applied approximately 17 rounds of tape to hold it in place. Halfway through, I noticed that I was grinning a little too hard, and also there might have been a drop of drool involved in there somewhere.  And someone was doing some muttering.

The chair is fixed, sure, but I’m apparently well on my way to being broken.  And it’s only Day 2.