Covid Adjustments

Now, my son has lived with me for 18 years. He knows I spend a good deal of my life thinking up ideas and doing whatever project is in my head at the moment. He never knows exactly what I will be up to when he calls.This kind of reliable change delights me AND can be completely irritating to someone who has a deep and abiding appreciation of order, schedules and routine.

In giving him a little breather from my projects, I hadn’t really mentioned to him that while he was away at college for the last nine months, I had decided to rent out the back half of the house AND that I had moved into his bedroom AND that if he came home, his mom would be his roommate. Sometimes surprises are nice.

But this wasn’t one of those times.

I knew he would need a space of his own if he was going to be home for several months.

So, I got this idea.

Since we were in lockdown and no one should be coming over anyway, I would move my bed into the living room and sleep next to my printer.

My new printer had JUST been delivered, and it felt like a romantic idea to sleep next to this big, beautiful machine that I had wanted for so long.

It would make the living room a bit cluttered and the couches totally unusable, but this plan would work just fine.

So I got his room all situated for him, and I settled in for my first night’s sleep next to Big Blue, my dream printer.

And that was when I realized the flaw in my plan. This printer is ALWAYS running, and every few hours it fires itself up and circulates the ink. This process isn’t that loud during the day when traffic is going by, and the world is awake, but when you’re asleep, it’s quite capable of waking even the best of sleepers.

This process happens 3-4 times every night and my very romantic idea became very unromantic in a hurry. It was like we just brought home a baby to quarantine with...fun to play with, but he doesn’t sleep through the night.

After a month of sleepless nights, I reminded myself that I was in charge. If I didn’t like sleeping next to my giant printer, I COULD move.

So one Saturday in April, I decided to move to the only other room in the house that had space for a bed.

The kitchen.

I turned up the music and happily dismantled my bed and hauled it into the kitchen, set it up next to the table and was pleased with myself as I put my feet up to read a magazine.

Having my bedroom in the kitchen was going to be handy for someone like me that appreciates midnight snacks and breakfast in bed. This was going to work just fine.

That night I smiled victoriously as I climbed into my cozy bed and settled in for a restful night’s sleep.

I was just drifting off to sleep, delighted with my decision, when the ice fell from the ice maker.