‘Excuuuuuuse me’, a customer coos as I am about to take my break, ‘Where can I find loo roll?’
I knit my eyebrows in faux-pity and sigh.
‘Right here’ – I gesture to an empty fixture bearing four, barren shelves – ‘is where it would be.’
‘Do you have any out back?’
I nearly say ‘Oh, honey’, but bite my lip to stop myself, which thankfully my mask conceals.
‘We dooon’t, unfortunately.’
‘Could you look quickly?’
My quiet amusement turns to bubbling rage. I breathe in sharply through my nose.
‘Listen bitch’ I (don’t) say, ‘You are the third person to ask me in the last hour. Trust me when I tell you we do not have any toilet paper.’
She opens her mouth to retort but I cut her off with ‘I’monmybreaknowbyyyyyyeeee’ and dash down the aisle before she can ask me anything else.
It is the 1st November 2020. Approximately fifteen hours have passed since the UK government announced a second national shutdown. Strap yourself in, ladies and gentlemen, because it’s time for…
Lockdown 2: Not-So-Electric Boogaloo
I would describe my general attitude towards the pandemic as akin to sticking my fingers in my ears and yelling, Jeremy Usbourne-esque, ‘LALALALALALALALA, I can’t hear you, I’m fit and young and I’m going to live forever’. With normality seemingly in touching distance over summer, I hopped on a banister gilded with unfettered debauchery and rode it down a spiral staircase of rampant hedonism. But now the ride is coming to an end I can see the marble floor I’m about to hit head-first. I am barely able to enjoy the last few days of freedom because I can’t shake the feeling that I’m on death row.
‘Ok, but what about all the people who are, y’know… actually on their deathbeds,’ my friend says when I make this comment to her.
Pause.
‘and you’re just bitching because the pubs are shutting.’
‘I’m being flippant—’
‘What about all the underpaid, overworked NHS staff on the front line—’
‘Ok—’
‘What about all the vulnerable people who have been shielding for months—’
‘Righ—’
‘All those people inching closer and closer to poverty because they’ve lost their livelihoods—’
‘I am aware that as COVID Top Trumps goes, I’ve got a weak hand,’ I squawk. ‘But it’s still shit.’
November 4th: The Last Supper
‘I can’t believe I didn’t land a boyfriend between this lockdown and the last,’ I say to my friend as we each collect what might be The Last Pumpkin Spice Latte we enjoy in 2020.
‘Really? You can’t believe it?’
‘Excuse you?’
‘Your behaviour really, really didn’t suggest you were looking’
‘I mean I wouldn’t say looking, bu—’
‘The opposite, in fact’
‘Ok, righ—’
‘Picking up random men in parks doesn’t exactly scream ‘devout monogamist looking for love’’.
‘That was one time!’
‘Sure—’
‘I was on holiday. When in Rome–’
‘Munich, wasn’t it?’
‘Well, yes, bu—’
‘I’ve heard enough about your bratwurst-filled German excursion.’
Pause.
‘I see your point.’ Sllluuuuuuurrrrrpp. ‘I’m done with all that, anyway’
‘I’ll believe it when I see it.’
‘I’m doing No-Hoe November, actually.’
‘You say that like it’s your own prerogative and not a legally-enforced government sanction forbidding contact with strangers in a national lockdown’
‘Hey, I said I was quitting the game on, like, Halloween, before we knew there was even going to be another lockdown!’
‘Yes, but you were five G&Ts deep and dressed head-to-toe as a Playboy Bunny so forgive me for not taking you seriously.’
I take a long, hard, loud sip of my PSL.
‘BoJo’s announcement slapped all the horny out of me anyway’, I mutter.
Day 1
Part of me is excited for a month unhampered by temptation.
‘I could do with a detox,’ I tell my mum. ‘This lockdown will be a welcome break from my own behaviour. A detox from me. A… a metox, if you will.’
She stops eating, puts her knife down, looks me dead in the eyes and says:
‘Don’t ever say ‘me-tox’ again.’
Clearing up, I make a mental list of everything I’m going to achieve: I’ll cut down on sugar. I’ll run when the weather’s good and do home workouts when it’s bad. I’ll tidy up my C.V. and master LinkedIn and complete three job applications a week. I’ll read more, I’ll write more, and I’ll cut out all the crap that’s holding me back: no drink, no drugs, no junk food, no dating apps…
It takes less than a day for me to succumb.
I am on my way to work when I pass Colonel Sanders, iridescent against the empty street and the pitch-black 4 pm sky. Curiosity gets the better of me and I push the glass door gingerly. I’m inside.
I’m… the only one inside. Tinny radio plays from an unidentifiable source. Overhead lighting flickers. Have I reached the pearly gates? As I walk towards the counter, I see there is a girl standing behind it.
‘Are you open?’ Is this heaven?
‘Yeah, would you like to order something?’
Uh-oh.
My lockdown goals were directly or indirectly dependent upon fast food being completely inaccessible. In one fatal blow, everything I had hoped to achieve in isolation crumbles into oblivion like the ill-fated 50% in Avengers: Infinity War.
This is not a good start.
I arrive at work and kick the door to the staff room open like I’m performing a police raid then slam my KFC on the table. The clock-in machine reads 16:23. I’ve got seven minutes to get to work on my bargain bucket before I… well, get to work.
The greasy deliciousness brings a tear to my eye. The realisation that this is the highlight of my week brings another, less-happy tear. Mid-finger-lickin’, my co-worker pokes his head round:
‘Takeaways are open?’
‘They’re the only thing that’s open.’
‘Were they open in the first lockdown?’
‘No, Greg, because I was skinny in the first lockdown.’
Day 3
‘Really? You’re really not having anyone round?’
I am on the phone to my friend. He has just broken the news that his household are really, truly following the rules this time and I can’t hang out there anymore. Since when were my friends law-abiding citizens?
‘It’s the rules.’
‘But… but it’s me! Your pal. Your loyal dinner guest. Your friendly neighbourhood sex pest. I’m five-foot-four, I don’t take up much spac—’
‘Look, give it a few weeks, yeah?’
‘Is this because I work in a supermarket?’
‘No! But the fact you effectively earn a living touching surfaces and getting coughed on by the general public doesn’t exactly help your case.’
‘That is so unfai—’
‘Sorry, Laz.’
The dial tone sounds. I’ve taken a lot of pies this year but this one hurts the most.
Day 8
Day in, day out, the same thoughts rattle around my skull like the last Tic Tac in the tub. Fighting the feeling that you are sleepwalking through your twenties is an uphill battle. I am mid-way through ironing when I burst into tears.
Mum rushes to my side: ‘What’s wrong, darling?’
It is hard to explain to parents that you’re upset because rolling around half-naked in a field mashed off your face on a Class A-cocktail is cancelled for the foreseeable future.
Day 17
Who is this pale old lady? I think, staring at myself in the bathroom mirror.
‘I’m too young and too hot to be a spinster,’ I sigh, pulling my face taut with my fingertips.
‘And so modest!’ says my sister.
Day 19
I don’t know if it’s the loneliness or the horniness, but by week 3 flirtation and validation have become currency. After serving a customer I wave goodbye, then when he is fully out of earshot I turn to my co-worker and hiss:
‘Did you see that?’
‘See what?’
‘That cute boy I just served made a lot of eye contact.’
‘And? I had sex four times yesterday.’
‘Not all of us get to isolate with our beautiful girlfriends, John.’
Day 21
I kill a few hours scrolling through Rightmove in a vain attempt to fuel some kind of escape fantasy: If only I lived with my pals in a five-bedroom semi overlooking the seafront.
Tinder serves the same purpose: If only I was getting piped by Dan the Plumber, 27, from Crawley.
Day ?????????????
At other low points in my life, I have manipulated my privilege to flip the switch and mess around with the controls. Bad night out? Leave. Don’t like your housemates? Move. Need a change? Get on a plane. Relationship troubles? Dump ‘em.
Unfortunately, you can’t rage quit a global pandemic. Checking the news every day and wondering ‘Is it over yet?’ has become the adult equivalent of a child in the backseat of a car leaning forward every two minutes to ask ‘Are we there yet?’.
In the first lockdown, I distracted myself with fitness. I stopped drinking, started running and got into resistance training.
‘Why don’t you do that again?’, my mother asks when I bemoan Coronageddon for the 858376920829th time.
‘Because it’s cold and wet and dark.’ And it’s not like anybody’s seeing the results anyway.
‘You’d feel better for i—’
‘Hmm. No. No, I think I’m just gonna wallow this time.’ I bite into a Chilli Heatwave Dorito and press play on my sixteenth Sex and the City episode of the day.
I have sustained exactly zero (0) hobbies since COVID-19 graced our lives. This is partly because I spend sixty hours a week mopping floors, stacking shelves and performing (figurative) analingus on one of the whitest and Karen-est supermarket customer populations in the country, but mainly because I am an impatient and self-indulgent pleasureseeker who has never stuck out anything long enough to reap or even comprehend the rewards of long-term gratification. I am sure that, till the day I die, I will continue to blame my parents for not forcing me to pick up the cello when I was five, or conscripting me to Spanish lessons, or pushing me to join Athletics. That lockdown is the perfect opportunity to finesse a new skill does not compute. There’s always the next day in the endless hellscape, so why start today?
I raise the subject on a not-so-socially-distanced walk with some friends:
‘Maybe it’s a sign.’
‘A sign?’
‘A sign there’s more to life. A sign we should cultivate more viable personalities than ‘seshhead sex addict’.’
‘Well, that’s just ridiculous—’
‘I don’t want to spend my Friday nights crafting, we’re in our early twenties, for fuck’s sake—’
‘Yes, we should be on the piss—’
‘Slamming lines and banging 9s—’
‘Popping Es and shagging 3s, you mean.’
We laugh, then hold a moment of silence for our former selves.
‘Imagine being in a smoking area.’
‘Imagine feeling that bass.’
‘Imagine life being that fun.’
Even when the pubs opened again (fleetingly and exclusively in the home counties), last orders generally meant the night was about to come to an abrupt end. What I miss most is the realm of possibility. On any given night in the Before Time, a ‘couple of drinks’ could lead to ten more, a white powder raffle, an event and an afters till McDonald’s start serving breakfast. We’ve so quickly become complacent with this boring way of life that it feels shameful even to crave chaos. All concept of time and age has been lost in the lockdown limbo: am I going to bed at half 10 because there’s nothing else to do, or am I getting old? What if I’m still clocking out by 11 when everything does open up? What if I can’t hack festivals anymore?
Lockdowns have become bookends to momentary joy and a glimmer of what youth should be like. When the rules relaxed in December, I compressed as much drinking and depravity into the lead-up to Christmas as my body would physically allow, garnering enough PG to X-Rated intimacy ticks to see me through to the new year and onto the naughty list. Judging by how many people had the same idea, it’s a miracle the new strain isn’t sentient.
Unsurprisingly, a tier system which had us photoshopping water bills and crossing county lines for a pint failed to halt the spread of coronavirus. On the 4th of January 2021, Lockdown 3 (Cup of Tea) is announced and the nation puts their kettles on.
Before I have even decided whether to spend the next few months crying or masturbating, the event is swiftly consummated by a notification I swiftly swat away:
Smoking Hot Mess 