Inappropriate Thought Bubbles

Don’t you wish humans had those cartoon thought bubbles above their head so you’d always know what someone was thinking?

A few weeks ago I was preparing to bake meat in a cast iron skillet. My friend Mindy taught me this method and I have been cooking every known type of meat in a cast iron skillet since. As Mindy likes to say, my enthusiasm about this is like I invented penicillin. Well, call me Madame Curie.

So there I was cooking a meat source in a cast iron skillet and had announced to The Husband to get ready to open all doors and windows because the smoke alarm would be going off (cast iron baking has some drawbacks). He’s emptying the dishwasher and has a knife in his hand. I yell, “GO!” He turns in circles with the knife in his hand. Smoke alarm is screaming. Behold our thought bubbles:

This incident led to an hours long stand off until I finally went to him and said we should not be fighting given that we are in the End of Days and he is my Quarantine Person. He agreed.

When this pandemic was first underway my sister Dorothy and her Quarantine Person, husband Bob, were out somewhere when Bob thought he caught some spittle on his face. Bob holed himself up at home for a two week quarantine while Dorothy texted her sisters exchanging LOLs and laugh emojis—that one with the tears. I can assure you no one called back to check on Bob. We Piermans are more of a suck it up buttercup sort.

A few weeks ago my sister Judy was hoping for a meaty meal for what she had deemed in her head was to be her last because she probably had the virus (we Piermans dwell in histrionic health). She came upon her Quarantine Person, husband Duane, cooking a pot of beans. BEANS! She may or may not have flipped him off, the record is not clear (she totally did), but he double flipped her off which was a declaration of war. She lunged all 95 pounds of herself at him, choking him. I know you are thinking:

But they have been married for 50+ years. Their marriage has not to now been a violent one but you can’t cage a Pierman. Everyone should know that.

I’ve been feeling sorry for myself lately, missing my old life and having the World’s Happiest Man as my Quarantine Person when what I really need is someone—like Judy has—someone to choke. Yesterday The Husband was talking to our son, Jake, on speakerphone. I was doing the backstroke in my pity pool when The Husband, that sweet, sweet man, said something completely ordinary like, “My shirt is green,” yet this extraordinarily inappropriate thought bubble percolated:

Only the words actually came out of my mouth. I backpedaled, “Jake, this quarantine thing is really getting to me.” They both laughed because they recognize the Pierman runs deep in me and we really, really should not be caged. Later The Husband said there’s no one else he’d rather have for his Quarantine Person than me.

Idiot.

Ps I love my husband. I wear a mask. I know the virus kills. This is satire.