Tuesday, 1 June 2021

The Logic of Lifting COVID Restrictions Applied to Your Life

  • I’m prescribing you thirty milligrams of Prozac per day. The moment you begin to feel happy again, stop taking it. You wouldn’t want to experience any sort of sustained joy, would you?
Cloud over a person who is crying and creating a pool of water on the table.
  • Your fourteen-year-old is failing algebra. You hire a tutor for him until he gets his grades up to a D-minus, and then fire the tutor for a job well done.

  • You’ve lost eight ounces of body weight. Now is the time to reintroduce carbs.

  • On day one of training for a marathon, you stretch and then publish a book about how you ran a marathon.

Cover of a book titled "If I Ran It."
  • Buckle your seatbelt, but only until you get in a car accident. At that point, it’s done its job and can be unbuckled. You don’t want to be dependent on a seatbelt for the rest of your life.

  • Did cutting out caffeine improve your sleep? Well, you’re surely well-rested now, and the Red Bull Industry needs you! At least, that’s what the lobbyists keep telling me.


Person in hospital bed, hooked up to a Red Bull IV.
  • So, you want to go to law school? The first step is to tell everyone that you’re “thinking about law school” for six years. Once you finish doing that, you’re done! At least, this is as far as anyone I know has ever got.
Certificate for "Real Lawyer."
  • You can clog the leak in your ceiling with a Kleenex. If that fails, try a second Kleenex. If that fails, just acknowledge that you were meant to live this way. It’ll be like “The Shape of Water,” and that movie won Oscars.
Person dancing in the water leaking from their ceiling.
  • Your house is on fire, so blow out your birthday candle and call it a day.
Dog blowing out birthday candles while the room they're in is engulfed by flames.
  • You did the hard work of waking up this morning. Reward yourself by taking the rest of the day off!

  • As the saying goes, if at first you don’t succeed, you’ve failed and should quit.

  • As the other saying goes, if at first you do succeed, also quit.

  • When things start to improve, cease what you’re doing immediately. What’s the point of a little bit of progress? I mean, it’s all just life. Did you expect it to be fun? Everyone has such unrealistic expectations, and that’s why they’re so dissatisfied. I did my best, O.K.? No, it wasn’t that good, but can’t we all just collectively blame Trump? Or America’s mayors? Or the virus itself? Or the Kardashians? Just someone who isn’t me. I tried, for a minute, I really did! I really did!


A shrugging emoticon.
  • Stop eating when you’re no longer hungry. Just kidding. Literally no one does this.

Ginny Hogan is the author of “Toxic Femininity in the Workplace.”

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