By: Juztin Bello, Copy Editor
- Hit up your ex
Since dating your ex ended up being a waste of time despite your initial thoughts, inserting yourself back into their life during lockdown truly lives up to the “unprecedented times” we’re currently in. You want “unprecedented?” Try giving the guy with poor morals and worldviews (and an even poorer hairline) who broke up with you over the phone another chance. Now that’s unprecedented. Just remember to cut things off once lockdown ends, because as self-inserted Presidential-elect Kanye West once said: “keep your love lockdown.”
2. Maximize on sleeping
Parents may often warn you that by sleeping in ‘til noon, you’re “wasting the day” or “lazy” and “a total waste of human life, Jared. Also, when are you going to find a job so you can move out of this house, for Christ’s sake?” But don’t listen to them (unless you’re Jared). Sleeping is a perfect way to help time move by faster, since your unconsciousness inhibits you from noticing how slowly the days go by. All of those useless hours can instead be spent dreaming about a blissful, COVID-free life — or they can be an endless array of anxiety dreams triggered by your reluctance to confront problems with your mental health that you should really deal with and talk about. But that’s an awake you problem! Sweet dreams!
3. Lay in bed and rotate through the same five apps, day in and day out
If this feels like a very specific callout, I’m here to tell you it is. As you’re reading this, you’ve just closed Instagram to look at Twitter, even though you just closed Twitter to look at Facebook and then went right to Instagram. I’m looking right at you, lying in the darkness on your side with a pillow between your legs and/or nestled between one arm and your head. Your iPhone screen and cheap lights you ordered because everyone on TikTok had them illuminate your face. Oh? Did your attention span just subside and you no longer want to look at Twitter? Close that app and go back to Instagram, you coloured-haired, validation-craving Tumblr dweeb.
4. Sell your soul to Chronos, God of Time
People who say you can’t buy your way out of a problem have clearly never considered how expensive a human soul is to beings who see humans as expendable. No, not your fabricated Tesla and Amazon capitalist overlords; I’m talking about actual gods. Take that expensive soul of yours and offer it up to Chronos, God of Time. Ask him to bestow onto us measly mortals the gift of moving forward to a time beyond lockdowns and plagues. Hopefully, if he’s kind, he will comply with your weak demands. And if he looks anything like his depiction on the hit Canadian cartoon Class of Titans, tell the God of Time that my soul and body are ready for him, anytime.
5. Attempt time travel
Anyone who said you can’t learn anything from TV and movies is, frankly, a giant LOSER and probably a nerd — unlike you. Take some inspiration from the classic time-travel trope to fast forward right to when lockdown is over. You could try driving a car super fast to replicate Back to the Future, cryogenically freeze yourself like Fry in Futurama or Walt Disney (look it up), or pray that whoever is controlling the simulation decides to pull an Animal Crossing-style time travel. Just don’t make that stupid fucking “where are we, more like when are we” time travel joke when you eventually succeed — you don’t need need to travel forward in time to know the joke didn’t land.
6. Run absurdly fast around the entire Earth
Not to get scientific on main, but technically the way we tell time is because of the Earth rotating, right? So who’s to say that if you run super fast around the world, you can’t help speed up rotation and thus make time go by faster? Just strap on those gym shoes unused during and before this quarantine began, stick your arms backwards Naruto-style for speed, and fucking book it. And before any of you flat Earthers come for me, maybe take that energy you use to argue about the shape of our literally proven-to-be-round planet and worry about flattening a different curve.
7. Just like, start a hobby! 🙂
TBQH, why try any of this other junk when you could just start a hobby! 🙂 It’s like, so cooky to get caught up in something like knitting and using it as a replacement for stitching together a personality 😀 Isn’t it so quirky to just get into arts and crafts, or like, baking just for fun?! :3 Oh, and then starting an Instagram account for your hobby because you think people actually care? :} Or is it, like, just actually super juvenile and an unrealistic practice that people who jerk it to 5 Minute Crafts on YouTube preach as being self-care because they think they’re better than you? :] Oh, and you should totally like, start an Etsy or advertise your stuff on Facebook Marketplace too, capitalism is sooooo cute right now. :*
8. Change the date on all of your devices
Let’s get honest for a second here: time is just a concept. You’re telling me that randomly twice throughout the year time moves backwards an hour and then miraculously an hour forwards? Why can’t we just pull the same shit with lockdown? That’s right, it’s because that’s what the man says. It’s all Big Business brainwashing us. Be complacent no longer! Just move your calendars forward to lockdown’s end, throw the first authority figure that classic middle finger, and light a cigarette as you kick-flip and ride your skateboard into the night. But then again . . . what does “night” even mean . . .
9. Begin your character-development training arc to trigger a time-skip
A classic anime trope, if you want to speed your story up a bit, just go off to train off-screen for an unspecified amount of time and come back when lockdown is over. Your muscles will be unrealistically bigger, your hair will be spikier, and your latent abilities that will help you defeat the forces of evil will be awakened. Also all of your friends’ will have grown at least three cup sizes — just roll with it, it’s for the fans. Just don’t be alarmed by your friends, allies, and enemies suddenly looking dramatically different — they changed illustrators between the lockdown and somehow expected you to accept it and not notice.
10. Wear a fucking mask and stay inside
Alright, no more beating around the bush. You want this pandemic to end so you can go back to breathing down people’s necks on the bus while you refuse to put your backpack on the ground? You want to start catching people’s spit in your mouth while you dance to an over-saturated EDM song at The Pint? Try staying inside and actually following the rules, Khymberleigh. And if you absolutely must go outside (for valid reasons such as work or your education, not to hook up with Cradley AKA the guy who still visits his high school even though he graduated five years ago), wear a fucking mask.
