Greetings isolators / key workers / gone-back-to workers / reluctant commuters / working-from-homers / sunbathers / exercising 29-times-a-dayers / whatever the hell we’re supposed to be doing or calling ourselves these days.
This has been a funny old business, hasn’t it? The world has been infected with the same virus, as countries and nations we’ve been given the same “instructions” by our respective governments (or just told to use our common sense), and yet our individual experiences of this pandemic will vary gigantically: some of us will have never worked harder or under more stressful or demanding circumstances; some of us will have knowingly risked our health and our lives every single day; and some of us will have descaled the kettle.
I’m a kettle descaler. My work was wiped out back in mid March and has yet to resurface. As a result of not working for nine weeks, I have made an important decision: I am never going to work again.
I have decided that not working is just better than working. Especially when the weather is amazing and that nice man Rishi Sunak has given me some money under the self-employment grant scheme, so I’ve decided that I’m going to write to Rishi Sunak and ask him if he’ll keep it coming.
For those of us who have been kettle descalers throughout this pandemic, this will likely be the longest time since we were about three years-old that we have not had anything to do. When was the last time you had a nine week holiday?? Are there any studies to show whether a human being can even do work after a nine week holiday? Because I feel pretty certain that if I was asked right now to look at a document or write a paper or do anything that I was doing before the pandemic, I wouldn’t be very good at it.
Also, if I go back to work I won’t have time to do anything important, like go for long directionless walks, or bake cookies, or put a load of clothes in a binbag then change my mind and take half of them out again, or sit down at my desk on a sunny afternoon with a sharing bag of Twiglets and write a blog, or do my Painting by Numbers. Painting by Numbers has become a very important part of my life. Before Covid-19, I hadn’t done a Painting by Numbers for about 20 years because I was a grown-up and I went to the pub instead, but since lockdown I have done two and I’m on my third. I cannot imagine life without Painting by Numbers. I do my painting and I listen to podcasts. It is lovely. If I am forced to go to a meeting, all I will do is think about Painting by Numbers.
And anyway, due to a cunning time-filling tactic practised throughout lockdown, things now take far too long for me to fit in work. Showering and brushing my teeth takes at least an hour. Breakfast isn’t until 11am and is barely over by 1pm. Thinking about going to Sainsbury’s, preparing to go to Sainsbury’s, walking to Sainsbury’s, being in Sainsbury’s and walking back from Sainsbury’s is a good four hour process. That’s already an entire day filled, and did you spot any time in that schedule to fit in some work? Didn’t think so.
I mean, I do realise that in order to rescue our crippled economy and prevent a devastating recession we do all need to get our arses in gear and start doing some work, but does the economy really want the help of a load of braindead layabouts like us who have spent the last two months watching Pointless and clearing out the loft?
So, it really does all make sense, you see, and once Rishi Sunak agrees to keep paying me not to work, things will just be great because there’s so much stuff I’ve yet to do that isn’t work: there’s a patch of grass outside my window that I want to go and stand in, I still haven’t hoovered behind the radiators, and the Sky Crime channel won’t watch itself, so I’ll have a pretty full life.
And for those of you who haven’t had a nine week holiday, you are absolute heroes and legends and we salute you. We’re all legends for getting through this, except some of us are actual legends and some of us are kettle legends.
BECKY SAYS THINGS 