This Is Not A Scarf

by Aidan Loughran from Brooklyn, NY

One day a scarf is just a scarf. And then suddenly -

We are quarantined in our one bedroom apartment, minus the one bedroom. Due to an ant infestation, we have been sleeping in the living room. Ants themselves don’t make me squeamish. Ants falling onto your chest in the middle of the night while you lie in bed make me squeamish.

I became Aidan the Ant Slayer. Armed with our Raid, ant baits, and fingers. Kill two and one more appeared, crawling up your leg to exact it’s revenge. Spray the window and they materialize on the ceiling.

The lighting in our bedroom is beautiful. David looks at me after spraying a lethal dose of Raid, and I click. But I look at photos of my fiancé, a scarf wrapped around his face to protect against the fumes, and all I can see now is “pandemic.”

A scarf is no longer a scarf. Just like a face mask is no longer a mask. Blue latex gloves are the lines you wait in outside of your pharmacy because they only allow ten in at a time. Hand sanitizers are the red six foot long signs that read KEEP THIS FAR APART. Toilet paper is a reminder of empty shelves in the supermarkets (and the subsequent signs declaring only five rolls of toilet paper per customer).

In conclusion, I believe our ant problem was caused by a bowl of water kept on the heater in our bedroom, a homemade humidifier. Apparently ants crave moisture just as much as they do food.

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