Quiz #47. Hungry
Why did I wake up cranky but go to sleep feeling like Christmas morning? Steve's Stay-at-Home Coronavirus Quiz for April 6, 2020
Tuesday night, May 5, we ordered a take-out, delivery meal from our favorite local Chinese restaurant. We’d ordered some pizza last weekend, but it was our first order of Chinese take-out since the start of the pandemic.
Will, my stepson, is actually the most conservative one in the house when it comes to concerns about spreading and contracting coronavirus--especially with his high-risk elders which include his mother and 63-year-old me. We’ve dubbed him the “Minister of Health.” He said a contactless delivery would be OK and it would be a good idea to support Chinese restaurants which have seen their business impacted by unfounded prejudice. We got the delivery with no problems and the meal was great.
Not eating take-out is hardly a hardship with all that’s going on, but for us, it was one more small step towards “the new normal.”
And yet, on Wednesday morning, May 6th, I woke up--anxious, agitated and upset.
Coronavirus, Pandemic, Death toll?
Job, Economy, Depression?
No More Task Force, Ending Stay-at-Home Orders, Coming November Election?
Over coffee with Sara, I tried to articulate my worries--and ventured off into the dark side with more than a few worst-case concerns.
Sara’s advice: Skip Steve’s Stay-at-Home Coronavirus Quiz for a day:
Leave your readers hungry for more.
Low on bread, Sara used leftover fortune cookies to give the dogs, Stella and Happy, their morning treat of pills and peanut butter. (More on the morning ritual of peanut butter for the dogs in Quiz # 44. Large.)
Sara handed me a fortune. I read it--and kept it.
Nothing in the world is accomplished without passion.
I took this as a sign that the universe wanted me to write a quiz--despite my foul mood.
What to write?
During my usual morning writing time, I turned instead to read Wednesday’s Understandably newsletter from Bill Murphy Jr. (Have I mentioned how much I enjoy and learn from Murphy’s newsletter? It always helps me understand people--and to live, well, understandably.) The newsletter, “4 Words People Need to Hear” is an ode to pressing on despite this pandemic--and to realize that in all this uncertainty, (Spoiler alert) “It’s not your fault.”
I emailed Murphy to thank him for the newsletter. It was just what I needed. Still stuck on what to write myself, I also decided to offer Murphy some of my own comments on his newsletter from Tuesday, “Brad Meltzer and me.” In that Tuesday newsletter, Murphy offered a draft of his mission statement for Understandably. Having read his newsletter every day for two months (on Sara’s recommendation), I thought his draft had not fully captured what had drawn me to his writings in the first place. I made some edits and suggested re-writes for his mission statement. He emailed me back--and we ended up talking on the phone for 20 minutes.
(A good talk, but still no quiz writing for me.)
I also checked the reviews and comments on Quiz #46. Jim McNellis. One woman, whose name I did not recognize, left me a 5-star review and said she liked the flow and tone of the McNellis narrative. I emailed her back and thanked her for the positive feedback.
Still stuck, I napped, showered and ate leftover Chinese food in an early lunch with Sara.
No more fortune cookies, but I still felt hungry for more. More quiz--and that’s the story of how (and why) I wrote today’s quiz early Wednesday afternoon.
And yet, I know that everyone’s really hungry for good news--and it came Wednesday evening in “Breaking News” from Queens. Our Amazon Prime delivery finally arrived at daughter Annie’s apartment and was waiting for her as she got home from work at her hospital. As detailed in Quiz # 39. Short and Sweet, for the first time since the pandemic hit, the order included Cheez-Its, one of Annie’s must-have foods.
Merry Christmas, Annie—and, as we always used to say about my father, “Never let a Thode get hungry.”
What did NOT happen?
A. I thought the woman who’d left me the 5-star review was the wife of a former co-worker. (The last names matched.) I sent her a “Thank you” email and told her to say “Hey” to her husband, Ian, only to get a reply. Her husband’s name was Michael and she wasn’t the wife of my former co-worker. She’d gone to summer camp with Sara and had “found” the quiz on Facebook;
B. My sister Ginny gave me her first 5-star review of the McNellis quiz (despite pointing out 4 typos);
C. I emailed a copy of the McNellis quiz to some people who had worked with Tim and me. I thought they’d get a kick out of the story of McNellis who worked at the Philadelphia Zoo, shoveling elephant manure. One former anchor emailed with his own joke about shoveling manure--and what it said about TV news;
D. When I emailed a copy of the McNellis quiz to people who had worked with Tim and me, one coworker thanked me and told me he’d “skimmed” it the night before;
E. The McNellis quiz included a tribute to the TV show, “thirtysomething.” A current coworker texted me this morning, “OK Boomer.”
Want the answer?
If you’re a subscriber, the answer will be sent to you as a separate email when the question is published.
Want more?
Here’s the next quiz in the series: Quiz #48.Mayday, Mayday.
Here’s the previous quiz in the series: Quiz #46. Jim McNellis.
Here’s the first quiz in the series: Quiz #1. Stella and Social Distancing, March 13, 2020
Here is an archive of all the quizzes.
The quiz is explained here: Steve’s Stay-at-Home Coronavirus Quiz.
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