People across the state knew that starting Saturday, March 21 at 5 p.m., they were going to get down to business. OK, maybe they would start the next morning, or on Monday morning, but they were serious.
That is the time the “shelter in place” directive came down from Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker due to COVID-19. Some people complained, but I thought it was a smart idea. You can’t fix dead.
Like a lot of people, I thought this would be the perfect time to get something done. Many people have talked about working on a car they are re-building or learning another language or staying home and making masks for people.
These are all grand ideas, so I decided this would be a great time for me to get back into shape. Besides work, I didn’t have much on my plate – pun intended – so I had a vision of myself coming out the other end of this looking like an Adonis.
Things got off to a rough start on Monday morning, however, when I realized my lovely wife had purchased Eggos. Now, I haven’t had an Eggo in decades, but when you are buying food that for an emergency situation, Eggos make more sense than kale.
Needless to say, I stuffed some Eggos down my throat. Yes, they were delicious.
I could recover from this, no problem. The next morning I would just start a challenging workout routine. My plan was to get up, feed the dogs, do some work and then get a little exercise.
So, the next morning I got up, fed the dogs and got on my computer to do some work. I turned on the TV in the background to the History channel. Yes, I missed my workout that morning, but you can’t just shut off a marathon of “Ancient Alien” episodes, can you? I mean, this is the History Channel. It’s important!
I felt pretty guilty about it at lunch, but it was nothing a few rolled tacos couldn’t fix. Seriously, this is comfort food people.
It was not going well. It was not going well at all. I only had a couple of weeks to get myself moving in the right direction. Thankfully, the governor extended shelter in place until the end of the month. Yes! I had more time!
It felt right to celebrate this win with a pizza. And I mean a pizza from a local restaurant. Helping a local business helped dim the shame of stuffing slices of pizza into my face.
Look, you know how this is going to go. I don’t need to give you all of the bloated details. Let’s just say that a “Star Wars” movie was on TV recently and when I saw Jabba the Hutt I thought I was looking in a mirror.
I was so ashamed I had a few scoops of ice cream.
Something has to give soon. I always used to eat a Lean Cuisine for lunch, but recently I couldn’t make it to the curb to grab our garbage cans without packing a light lunch. And by light lunch I mean a hoagie sandwich.
My only saving grace at this point is that the governor will extend this lockdown another few weeks. Seriously, if this doesn’t end soon, I might not be able to get outside – as in, get through the door.
Man, this is depressing. I need some Chinese food.
