A teen’s take on quarantine: not that fun

Quarantine is not as fun as I thought it would be. When this whole thing started, I was actually somewhat excited. It sounded like a great excuse to sleep in, watch YouTube all day, and forget everything I learned in middle school math class. But you get tired of being stuck indoors with the same few people. I mean, I’m starting to get bored of being on my phone all the time, and I’m a teenager. Shocking, I know.

But there’s only so much you can do when you can’t be near anyone else, and at this point, I’ve probably done everything. Reading? Did that. Completely messing up my sleep schedule? Did that. Watching all seven seasons of Star Wars: Clone Wars? Definitely did that. I’ve gotten better at drawing during quarantine (which is good), been forced to go hiking by my mom (“forced” makes it sound bad; it was actually sort of fun), and spent a lot of time laying in my bed questioning just why this year feels like someone hacked the Matrix and switched it from easy mode to ultimate impossible challenge mode.

Seriously, with the way 2020 has been going, I would hardly be surprised if a zombie apocalypse started before the end of the year. Maybe we should start preparing for that possibly, just in case. There isn’t much else to do. Heck, a zombie outbreak might be a lot of fun. Unless I die. Based on what I’ve seen from zombie movies, I’d die pretty quickly. So maybe it wouldn’t be fun. I also get the feeling that if there really was a zombie apocalypse, there’d be a lot of people who wouldn’t follow the necessary safety precautions (*cough* the idiots who refuse to wear masks in public *cough*).

I’m sure that everyone feels like quarantine has been going on forever. My sister described it pretty well: “Feels like a longer summer vacation.” Although summer vacation is supposed to be fun, she’s right. Summer vacation really did start early for us students. And no matter how much I’ve complained about school in the past, I want to go back. I’m still going to complain about it, but it would be nice to get back to normal life soon.

At least, I can’t wait to see my friends again. We text sometimes, but I’d really like to actually hang out with them like we did before coronavirus (Gasp! A teenager would rather talk to people in person than text them? The world has gone insane!). I’m a bit worried that my social skills have completely deteriorated during this quarantine, though. I wasn’t really a social person to begin with, as anyone who knows me could tell you, but I haven’t interacted with anyone in so long, so I’m really out of practice. I’ve also developed an obsession with horror movies, so that likely doesn’t help my social skills either.

Quarantine has given me a lot of time to think about a lot of various things, some good, some bad, some that are kind of in the middle. For instance, I’ve decided to declare war on creamed corn. I’ve never had it, but I saw a picture of it a couple days ago and decided it looked gross, so I hate it now. And that’s just what you do in quarantine, isn’t it? You’re so bored, you just… declare war. On inanimate objects and food items.

Overall, I’m giving quarantine a one-star review. The commercials made it look much better than it actually is. It was fun at first, but it gets boring quickly. Do not buy this product.