I don’t exactly “need my head examined” as my mom used to say in the politically incorrect days of yore, but there’s no question that these times of isolation are starting to get me down. 

I expect it’s like that for a lot of us. Surely to God there must be more to life than waiting around for the afternoon COVID numbers to come out and to hear the list of people lined up from one interest group or another to complain.

I know where I am on the issue. Get vaccinated, follow the science, and shut the hell up. Nice words from me, but it’s not much of a life to be living these days. 

There’s not a lot to it. My life has been reduced to an occasional but rare trip to the market at eight in the morning and a once-a-week Sunday dinner with my immediate family. There were no Christmas visitors this year either except for that same small family group.

‘Oh me Nerves’

Now these days in the morning I go out to the mailbox and get the paper, which is thinner than it used to be. I have a coffee and sit in the window and read as I look out over the forest which hasn’t changed since yesterday.

Even my wife, who I dearly love, is starting to get under my skin. Not in that “oh me nerves” bull crap you see on those hideous Newfoundland aprons you get on your way up to Cambridge, Ontario and points west.

My angst springs from the sound of a spoon on a cup of tea that wife stirs perhaps a couple of hundred times. I know in my heart she does it to annoy me, but I can’t prove it. It’s like the sound of dumping ice cubes loudly from the tray in the freezer into a container just as I’m taking a nap in the living room. IT IS A PLOT!!!

The Tedium of Life

Sometime to relive the tedium of life I’ll make a very early morning run to a discount store. Dressed in a special mask that looks like it might have been part of some HAZMAT suit I’ll buy more soup noodles or spaghetti sauce or discounted chocolate Santas left over from the Christmas trade. 

Even the store patrons in the early morning get on my nerves because they are generally older like me and have time on their hands and are looking to chat.

Myself, having been essentially isolated for a couple of years, am still not driven to small talk with strangers. I am just getting a break from home. 

I’ll go home now and get a break from here. 

NTV’s Jim Furlong can be reached by emailing: [email protected]