40 Things That Can’t Give You COVID-19*

*as far as we know

(Unwind yourselves, gentlepeople, it’s comedy)

Combining list items 3. and 31. Photo: Matthew Henry

1. Shakespeare’s sonnets
2. Danish architecture
3. Rewatching Dunston Checks In
4. The Kuiper Belt and associated celestial bodies of the trans-Neptunian region
5. Baroque music
6. Remembering the time you used the office printer on your lunch break to print out your resumé so you could apply for a new job and your boss saw you and as you hurried out of the room, you tripped over the carpet, rolled your ankle, fell on your face, and you were humiliated
7. Raindrops on roses
8. Weasels Ripped My Flesh, by Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention
9. Staring at an old Magic Eye book for an hour and a half
10. All of the characters in Arthurian legend
11. The following shades in your lipstick collection: Seductress, Harlot, Wench, Hooker, Hussy, Tramp, Lady of the Night, Floozy, Ho, and Ingénue
12. Calligraphy
13. Massage therapy courses (online only)
14. (Most) whiskers on kittens
15. Lady Chatterley’s Lover, by D.H. Lawrence
16. Lady Chatterley’s lover, Oliver Mellors
17. Mistaking a stranger on the street for a close friend and waving at them from afar before realizing it’s not them and then turning the corner immediately
18. Carp (untouched)
19. Carpentry (solo)
20. Carpal tunnel syndrome
21. Bright copper kettles (if not recently handled by someone else)
22. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon
23. The inner spark of hope that rises within you when you see videos of people accomplishing incredible feats that makes you think that you, even you, might be able to do something great with your life one day if you just applied yourself
24. The Mariana Trench
25. Watching supercuts of John McEnroe throw tennis tantrums in the eighties
26. Spell checking
27. Unloading the dryer
28. Clean thoughts
29. Dirty thoughts
30. The Mandalorian
31. Sitting alone
32. Cooking alone
33. Eating alone
34. Working alone
35. Watching TV alone
36. Walking alone
37. Sleeping alone
38. Thinking alone
39. Making lists alone
40. Warm woollen mittens (if touched by you only)