MICHAEL: Some asshole just crashed my Zoom meeting in full Carole Baskin cosplay. I see why people are so upset with the platform, but in this era where anti-aging serums are no longer considered essential, those filters are a greater gift to humanity than Mo Willems.

ALEXANDRA: This probably isn’t the best time to be sacrilegious. But since we’re living with your family rather than my deeply Catholic mother, I’ll risk saying this out loud — I’d rather see Lunch Doodles resurrected than our Lord and Savior.

MICHAEL: YOUR Lord and Savior. I can’t believe your folks seriously considered attending Easter Mass. The regular inhabitants of this house and I finished up our holiday celebrations well before the weekend via teleconferencing. Though, full disclosure, given a choice between sharing a glass of wine with the prophet Elijah or Mo, I’d struggle, too. I miss Mo and his beard so much.

ALEXANDRA: Well, I still see him every day. He’s a regular in my sex dreams these days.

MICHAEL: Really? Mine have mostly been about Cuomo.

ALEXANDRA: Andrew or Chris?

MICHAEL: Yes.

ALEXANDRA: When we loaded Kittery and those canisters of Clorox wipes into the car nearly a month ago, I would never have thought my mental health would be so reliant on the playful banter of those two. Thanks to Andrew, nipple rings and bespoke face masks are going to be the hottest new trends this fall. How can we quickly leverage that into a business model that will allow us to keep paying our mortgage and monthly donations to Stacey Abrams’ Fair Fight?

MICHAEL: After Wisconsin’s primary, I think we make the latter our priority. All those dystopian novels, movies, and comic books we’ve consumed over the years, and I can’t think of a single one where the author imagined the internet would still be functioning during the apocalypse. At least we have that?

ALEXANDRA: Can you think of a story set in this century where a grown man crashing in his grandmother’s basement DOES NOT spend all his time on the internet? We’re twenty minutes away from Kate Hudson walking in here to give you a makeover. Assuming she could find the appropriate PPE, of course.

MICHAEL: Awww yeah. We’re in a rom-com. Let’s cut to the part where the guy gets the girl. Then we can burn off some energy AND scratch your itch for doodling.

ALEXANDRA: The thought of having sex under your grandmother is just too unsettling.

MICHAEL: That was a uniquely disturbing visual. I feel duped. Like all the state governors who bought their own PPE only to have it confiscated and redistributed to republican allies.

ALEXANDRA: Are we ever going to be able to get back to the city? Every trip to the grocery store feels like heading down the steps to the subway after 9-11. If it’s unsafe everywhere, can’t we be unsafe at home where out of work Broadway actors croon from their fire escapes and people take this thing seriously?

MICHAEL: You’re going to waste the summer months atop concrete when we could be growing food for the inevitable food shortage this winter?

ALEXANDRA: You couldn’t keep your sourdough starter alive for longer than a week, and suddenly you’re going to grow enough zucchini to feed us the two of us?

MICHAEL: The seven of us. Bubbe loves zucchini. And now that school is closed for the year, my sister and her kids are here indefinitely, too. I’ve never seen her this tired and I really want to support her in any way I can. Especially while she’s putting in so many hours at the hospital.

ALEXANDRA: That reminds me. I saw a tutorial where they removed the elastic from old fitted sheets to make masks. I was going to give it a try after distance learning was done for the day.

MICHAEL: You’re a regular Rosie the Seam Ripper-ter, my love. Her sewing machine is another reason we need to stay with Bubbe. Besides, she’s the only one of us who knows how to can.

ALEXANDRA: I AM NOT BUILT FOR HOMESTEADING, MICHAEL.

MICHAEL: It’s not forever, Alex. Just for the next year to 18 months. With probably some seasonal flares for a few more years. Funny how when 45 says we’ll be open by Easter, I scream he’s delusional, but when my nocturnal Knuddelbärchen forms a Regional Reopening Council with his other governor buddies around the northeast, it almost feels plausible.

ALEXANDRA: And now that the state leaders are resolved to making all these decisions on their own due to the lack of credible federal involvement, 45 goes and appoints his regular slew of assholes to his joke of a Council to Reopen America? I FUCKING CAN’T. I can’t handle quarantine fatigue on top of my outrage fatigue, and now the tigers at the Bronx Zoo have tested positive for COVID-19, and even though Kittery has indisputably NOT been within six feet of a tiger in the last two weeks, I don’t know what kind of mutations this asshole virus has been up to! I know that I need to stop watching every briefing from every governor, and I need to stop reading every article posted in my social media feed if I have any hope of not spiraling out here. But I also feel a compulsion to bear witness to these crimes and horrors. Like every moment I spend cataloging these wrongdoings is my testimony and duty so these people might someday be held accountable. Otherwise, I am nothing but the culmination of a steady diet of white guilt, baked goods, and John Hughes’ films.

MICHAEL: Would it help if I told you that not watching that stuff would negatively impact his ratings?

ALEXANDRA: It would. And I suppose another plus of being away from home is not having to face that daunting pile of unread New Yorkers. Though these days, not touching them for at least a week after delivery is the responsible choice. I haven’t been this afraid of my mail since the anthrax thing. I’m over here texting “USPS" to Resistbot while simultaneously boiling my renewed credit cards.

MICHAEL: Remember when 2001 seemed like it would be the hardest year of our lives?

ALEXANDRA: Honestly, I barely even remember what life was like before November 2016. This entire century is pretty disappointing thus far.

MICHAEL: Speaking of disappointments, how about all these glimpses into celebrity homes we’re getting these days? They all fall into one of two styles: Midwest Country Cottage 1998 or first apartment out of college with bare walls and one halogen floor lamp.

ALEXANDRA: Not John Krasinsksi and Emily Blunt’s house.

MICHAEL: True. His Some Good News bit is mercifully in good taste. Even if I sob through every single minute of every single episode.

ALEXANDRA: There have been two, Michael.

MICHAEL: Time and space have no meaning anymore, Alex. Maybe John could be your new Mo?

ALEXANDRA: I could never do that to Emily.

MICHAEL: That attitude isn’t going to win us any elections. Should we go ahead and order our shirts from Biden headquarters, or do you want to wait until he unveils his choice for VP? I know he’s problematic and VP feels like a conciliation prize, but at least there will be a woman in the White House?

ALEXANDRA: Fuck everything about 2020. The only way we can move forward is through some benevolent old white guy bestowing us with an opportunity? And what if he dies before the election?

MICHAEL: November feels like seven lifetimes away right now, Alex. Maybe we should just try and get through today.

ALEXANDRA: I don’t think my sleeper sofa-traumatized back can take another GoNoodle, Michael. Plus I need to make a meme rebuttal to all these internet assholes telling me Shakespeare wrote King Lear in quarantine. YOU are leading the kids in Phys Ed today.

MICHAEL: I suppose that’s warranted considering my carb intake. Too bad there isn’t a Zoom filter for that.