stocking up for winter fun
/In a mad frenzy this spring, along with the rest of you, I hoarded cards and puzzles, found the old chess and backgammon games, compiled the best-of-all-time comedy movie lists, and heaped it all in the living room like a sanctuary of silly sanity in preparation for quarantine.
Months later, I played one chess game, no cards, watched a few old movies, no puzzles, did manage to throw out torn photos and cracked knick-knacks, thin the tee-shirt and sock drawers, and stack up giveaways in a pile in the basement. Goodwill has been too full to contribute, we’re all doing the same thing.
But why didn’t I play those games, have more dumb fun? Why did I make this unexpected period a referendum on how to use time wisely, instead of flitting it away with classic musicals and secretly peeking in a dictionary during Scrabble.
I don’t know. How’d you do so far?
And yet, on my first journey into a brick-and-motor store other than a food market -- a general store in Maine -- I found myself ogling the oddest collection of time wasters the human race has ever created. I wanted every bit of it.
My fingers were itching to buy something like they’d been stuck in steel gloves and could finally spread, flex and slide up and down new cardboard and plastic, fleece and foam. Sticking out beyond my body, moving brainless and grasping like zombie hands, my paws inched along the shelves touching coloring books, Spiderman sweatpants, stuffed animals, bubbles, moose dice, grow-your-own mermaid sponges, paddles, balls, frisbees, crayons, markers, Parcheesi.
Hand sanitizer at the ready, my fingers had been let loose and I had no control of them whatsoever. The stuff they’d been meant to do -- find things, feel things, grab things especially shiny things like dangling shell earrings near the register, had been too long denied.
“It’s amazing how we used to fill our time buying stuff we’ll never use,” said my friend Noelle. “It’s nothing we need or even want. What’s the matter with us?”
Tell it to my hands.
I’d gone to the store for a nonstick pot for oatmeal. I don’t know if that would have satisfied me but since they didn’t have one, my hands felt like those of a long-lost lover reaching out to his or her darling, who suddenly vanishes. If it had been a person I came for, I would have married the next one who marched along.
With the cold weather on its way and indications we’ll be hanging low for several more months, I was suddenly inspired, compelled, to buy new versions of the things still sitting in that living room corner or stacked in the giveaway pile, a security blanket against the fear of drudgery or worse. Even if I hardly use them. Like a generator or homeowner’s insurance.
“It’s just more junk,” I say to myself out loud.
Yet tell it to my eyes, which are darting back and forth, or my breath panting like a dog about to snatch a new toy.
Recently, we bought one of those tall patio heaters like they have in outdoor cafes so at home when it’s cold we can still distance outside. That was a wise purchase, I thought.
But a jigsaw puzzle of lobsters?
And yet, would it make me feel better somehow, more prepared, more invested in finding the light side of this journey, even help me look forward to this unusual winter? I doubt it.
Then again, we do need to support these stores so they don’t go under. And besides, I never have played Yahtzee before.