Just back from the depths of despair, the wife readied herself to meet a friend for her first socially distanced outdoor lunch. That meant actually dressing.  It also meant trading her soft, stretchy bra for what she hadn’t  worn for months: an actual bra.

 

“You know what that felt like?” she asked the ODD reporter.  He shook his head. “Well, I’ll tell you what it felt like.  It felt like being crushed in a vise!” (She tends to exaggerate.)

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“They say that an estimated 80% of women wear the wrong bra size, which makes it sound like it’s our fault,” continued the wife.  “There is no right bra size because all the designs and sizings are different. And who decided that breasts had to be lifted, separated, pushed up, pushed together, pulled apart, contoured, in all manner of contraptions – the bullet bra, underwire, balconette, shelf, bustier—all descended from the corset!” 

 

“Breasts are round!” shouted the wife.  “They want comfort!  Comfort varies by woman!  What’s with this industry?!”

 

The reporter cleared his throat.  “So how was your lunch?” he asked.   

 

“It felt good to get out,” said the wife. 
 

“My last big shop was just before the pandemic.  Luckily, I got our standard block of 36 rolls of toilet paper—"

 “Thirty-six rolls?” asked the startled reporter.

“Costco,” said the husband. 

“When the pandemic hit, followed close behind (as it were) by a nationwide TP shortage, we had about 45 rolls,” said the husband.  “I didn’t panic. I tracked our usage over several weeks.  I projected that -- given our average usage of just under four rolls a week -- our hoard should last about three months.  And lo and behold, my assessment of our TP burn-rate was correct!”

 “Uh huh,” said the flummoxed reporter, closing his notebook.

 “In a pandemic, you have to be proud of something,” said the husband.

“I’m spatially challenged,” the wife confessed to ODD News. “In the only art class I ever had, I drew a tree stump that was the size of an adjacent house. I freak out when multiple signs come at me on the highway, so I spend an excessive amount of time lost.”

“One spatially related task I’m really good at, though, is packing the dishwasher. I just know, intuitively, what goes where and when.  And, honestly, I feel so good when I look at all those dirty dishes so beautifully placed.”

She also pointed out that dishwashers are having a moment.  “According to Houseopedia, with everybody home all the time, “your dishwasher, a coronavirus pandemic workhorse,” needs special attention. “They 
offered some useful advice, like don’t block your sprayers, and some stupid advice, like start at the bottom. 

“What if you dirty a bunch of glasses (e.g., zoom cocktails) before you dirty any dishes?” 

Queried as to her best piece of advice, the wife said.  “Don’t be afraid to rearrange--in dishwasher loading as in life.”