It’s that amazing time of year again, another lockdown! At least not yet anyway.
By Jakub Ivanecky
Photo by Laura Ockel on Unsplash
It is yet again the season of gift giving, and after Lunar New Year, Burns Night, New Years, Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, St Andrews Day, Halloween and National M&M Day, naturally what we want is more stuff we do not want nor need. With the pandemic also taking a backseat, we are happy to pour our energy into something less meaningful like the concept of love and mutual happiness.
Being detached from humanity for two years, or twenty years, as is the case with people who think cryptocurrency is always the go-to conservation when meeting new people, individuals are naturally going for the most expressive and quirky gifts they can offer. Many are looking to celebrities, influencers and other “professionally famous” people to get presents that say they are perfectly sane and normal.
The frontrunner as usual is Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop, a brand which simultaneously invokes both luxury and bodily excretions, much like their products. The leader of the Valentine´s Goop catalogue, seriously titled F*ck Me, F*ck You, F*ck it, is a lace-beaded blindfold, coming in at a completely reasonable two hundred and fifty dollars. It is a perfect gift for those of us who are sick and tired of suffering from our boyfriend´s inability to save for a train ticket to Edinburgh. Or him even putting down the toilet seat for that matter.
However, as a memento of things that we have endured, some are turning to the pandemic and bringing forward an idea – giving their partner Covid. As the infections are going down, many are struggling to re-join society and therefore their ineptitude shines through their character like the steam released from their nostrils because they still don't know how to wear a mask. The “mainstream procedure” involves a person going out with their significant other into an overcrowded night club, suppressing their need for survival and intimacy. Afterwards disregard any protocols of human decency and follow this liberating experience with mouth breathing into another in a complex scientific procedure known as “kissing”, bonus points if it happens on a public transport at 4am in the morning. The result is an incredible fever dream of an experience, as all people involved will be lying with a temperature capable of soft-boiling an egg.
People involved in this new “Quaran-tyne”™ are pushing for a more widespread support for their escapade, and the popularity has become quite infectious. After all, this experience is cheap and effective, as you will be forced to spend at least 5 to 10 days with your preferred partner in the same household, lying close proximity with other people leaving you alone and giving you as much space as is needed. Such a romantic gesture also reveals one's true nature, as believing that spreading a virus is the only way to get out of a pandemic makes one truly test their patience for another.
Meanwhile, I personally prefer to keep my traditions simple and intimate. Some scented candles, some chocolate, maybe a rose or other bouquet, and in the evening a sensual bubble bath. Quite possibly the best recipe for a wank I have ever devised.
