University of Lockdown.

There's a video (it's Buzzfeed, I'm sorry) featuring a woman who decided to use the Chinese Death Virus quarantine to learn 30 new skills in 30 days. Resin art, juggling, change guitar strings, and so on. A couple of weeks in she found it to be a lot more difficult than expected, and even distressing, because although she was not expecting to become a genius at the skills, she had assumed she could achieve competence.

I boggle at her underestimation of the difficulty of the task, but I admired the attempt. I think a lot of people who found themselves stuck and home and unable to work did not use the time to learn anything, except maybe how many Doritos can be stuffed in the human mouth at once. (Looking at you, Mr. Philbin.) Or maybe what it's like to drink Quarantinis at breakfast. And now, as the restrictions are lifting and the quarantine is ending, I have to ask myself: "Self, what things have I learned during this period?"

Urm... How about these?

🏫 The maple chipotle barbecue sauce you disliked is not improved by sitting on the door of your fridge for four months.
🏫 Drinking coffee before putting on a face mask can be a problem, because you must endure your own coffee breath for as long as you need to have a mask on.
🏫 All those things you said you'd do around the house if you only had the time? Turns out that wasn't the reason.
🏫 People can use facial tissues for toilet paper when push comes to shove.
🏫 Even during mob shopping sprees, Walmart still opens just five of its 43 checkouts.
🏫 The next time China ralphs up a novel virus, run right out and buy a freezer for the cellar and fill it with meat and tasty appetizers.
🏫 Cutting your own hair is more difficult than it looks, even with electric clippers.
🏫 People can use body wash for hand soap when push comes to shove.
🏫 When you have to go out, you want to stay home; when you have to stay home, you want to go out.
🏫 To contain a virus that is passed through the respiratory system, everyone must wear masks, unless wearing masks does nothing; not work, unless they have to work; stay six feet away from one another, or three feet, or twenty feet, or two grocery store aisles away; combat dangers to health by baking a lot and binge-watching and day-drinking; stay home, especially if you feel sick; stay home anyway, because people who get it often don't feel sick; stay home, unless you want to go to protest or riot, in which case you'll be protected by the justness of your cause and the fact that no one will trace your infection to it; protect the elderly, unless you want to bunch them together with sick people in a nursing home that normally locks down during influenza outbreaks; don't hoard, although a lot of shortages come from people being at home instead of school and work and from supply-chain disruption and are not the result of hoarding; shop online instead of stores, meaning Amazon, and spray everything you buy and the box it came in with Lysol, if you can find Lysol; wash your hands for twenty seconds at least, or use hand sanitizer, but it has to be at least 60% alcohol; hoard; not go shopping for nonessentials, unless they are sold in places that sell essentials, unless the state declares those aisles off limits; not patronize small stores, unless they sell alcohol or marijuana; not sing in church, if the churches are allowed to reopen; trust the medical experts, except when they turn out to be wrong; trust the talking heads on TV, except when they lie; hydroxychloroquine may be a useful treatment, unless the president likes it; and if you want to go back to work so you don't lose your home, you will be ridiculed as someone who just wants a haircut.

That's about all I learned. Surely this has been an expensive and yet mostly useless education, don't you think?