NO, not just ‘I can’t shake this cough’ – here are the other once-innocent phrases that now fill you with terror:
‘Let’s get the kids together on Zoom!’
Thought it would be ‘cute’ to ‘get the kids together’ on Zoom? How quickly you regret it. Children happily shout ‘Hello!’ and wave toys at the screen for 40 minutes as you hide in the porch to escape the cacophonous idiot babble.
‘Can you share your screen?’
Sharing your screen never worked even in the office with IT person a few desks away. Sharing it between 12 people worldwide from your basement flat in Dagenham is not going smoothly.
‘Strange times!’
Really? Nobody had noticed. Everything seems normal. Oh – hold on. No, shit is completely f**ked. Everything’s super weird and horrible. Thanks for pointing it out.
‘Rain’s forecast this week.’
No. No. No. This mad shit was just about bearable when the sun was shining. Under relentless winter rain? Impossible.
‘Your hair looks different.’
That’s because your natural hair colour is showing for the first time in 20 years. And it’s going to get worse. A lot worse. Prepare yourselves.
‘Join my online fitness class!’
Surely one of the few advantages of being confined to your home during a global pandemic is that you can slob out. Why are people trying to get you fit online? And for free, so you can’t even claim you can’t afford it? Bastards.
‘The Wi-Fi’s down.’
Some things are too horrible to contemplate. It won’t – it can’t – happen. If in doubt, press reset and count to ten, shaking in fear, muttering ‘Please no.’
