For the last week and half I’ve been working from home. Luckily, my job can be done anywhere with WiFi, so in terms of my work only the scenery has changed. I went from a nice ergonomic desk in a nice new office to an old table in my basement. But hey, at least there are florescent lights! Before I left the office I packed up my essentials and took them home, which I now realize all have my kids faces on them.
I knew I had stuff with my kids faces at my desk, but for some reason it never stood out in the context of a normal office. There are other people in the office and most of them had pictures of their kids, spouses, and pets. Now that I am in an office of one, it feels a little strange to have my kids faces all over my makeshift workspace when their actual squishy little faces are right upstairs. It feels like wearing a t-shirt of the band to their concert. We get it, you’re a fan.
But here I sit with a mouse pad that is a collage of their pictures, a lap top and second monitor both of which having a wallpaper that is them, and drinking coffee out of a mug that has one of my kids baby pictures all over it. This mug is actually a back-up mug which I needed to use after I left my other kid-face mug in the office. Good thing I have to, right? I haven’t had to wear them because I’m yet to change out of my pajamas, but I also have a pair of socks with kid faces all over them. I recognize that wearing those around the house would be too much, but is the rest of it?
Or is this my brand now? Should I go all in on plastering my kids on stuff? I don’t have them on a hat yet. There is at least some appropriate real estate on pants where you could put a kid’s face. Custom made bobble heads. Golf club covers that are their heads. The options are practically endless. Expect underwear.
Though I wonder, now that I am home with my kids, should I have things on my desk of people from work? I’m fairly certain the answer is no, but these are crazy times. If we’re not actually going to interact with our co-workers, maybe it’s acceptable to put up a poster of the person who used to sit across from you and talk to it Wilson the volleyball style. Seems ridiculous now, but we’re only a week into this. Conversations with nobody will only get more normal from here might as well be an early adopter.
Until then I guess I’ll keep surrounding myself with tiny versions of myself and cling to what used to be normal. Because socks with your kids faces on them are normal, right? Certainly more normal than your cat’s face, that’s for sure.
I Think Therefore I Dad 