Reality sets in: Day 2 of self-isolation

The snow, having somewhat melted in these frigid northern reaches of Ottawa, Mrs. Ottawacker and the plum of our loins have departed the kitchen post-dinnertime picnic to kick a ball around the street. I was not invited. I am currently persona non grata in the ball-kicking world. 
 
Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to Day 2 of our new series, Self-Isolation (the Basement World of The Ottawacker). Having discovered yesterday that The LCBO (to give it its full name, the Liquor Control Board of Ontario, or The Only Place You Can Buy Alcohol In The Province of Ontario) (we use LCBO as TOPYCBAITPOO is not quite as catchy) delivers alcohol to doorsteps and that the eponymous hero of these blips was running dangerously short of wine, whisky and beer, our hero placed an order on the strict understanding that the order would be received within 24 hours.
 
As Neville Chamberlain might have said: “I regret to inform you that I have received no such order. As of 18 hundred hours this evening, the Ottawacker household has had to resort to Opening Its Good Bottles.” These, it should be understood, are the bottles that have been laid down against a rainy day over a number of years, which have as yet, been resisted.
 
A half-dozen from the year of Ottawacker Jr.’s birth which shall only be opened upon his 18th birthday (untouched); 8 bottles for parties and special occasions (untouched); 3 bottles gifted (still there, but inching forward to the front of the queue); 2 bottles saved because they had yet been unsampled (one of which, an excellent bottle of Anciano Tempranillo, 7 years at purchase, is now being sampled).
 
Worse. The beer section of the basement fridge, in which Mrs. Ottawacker now keeps, among other things, the butter, contains one Coors Light – which I shall never touch, as it tastes like chilled donkey urine (which, ironically, isn’t as bad as it sounds, and is definitely superior to Coors Light). And there is still no whisky. This, ladies and gentlemen, is a crisis. The crisis is, of course, that the bottles are far too good to be wasted on the likes of me.
 
Notwithstanding the crisis in the alcohol department, things are going rather less well than yesterday. The novelty of sitting in a darkened basement facing a wall is wearing rather thin (see photo). I feel like a prisoner, the Nelson Mandela of Ottawa. If only I had NM’s capacity for writing. Instead of turning this into an experience, I have frittered away the day doing laundry-related chores and listening to music. At least I kept off the Internet, something I will endeavour to do from now on.
 
Anyway, only 12 more days to go before I enter the more open prison of Covid19 Canada. I called a few people today and wrote some emails. The phone calls were all similarly doom-stricken. From the friend who is in self-isolation because the PM’s wife was having lunch next to him (his story is a salutary lesson to all those who go for lunch in the nation’s capital: pitting the excitement and pride of living in a place where the PM’s wife can have lunch in a normal restaurant downtown to the anger of her being out when she should have quite frankly been self-isolating and not putting other people at risk) to my sister, who has come down with a virus (maybe the virus) and others too, it just seems as if, all of a sudden, we are at a tipping point. People have had enough.
 
And this is Day 2. Maybe Frodo will come to the rescue. He hasn’t yet – I might have to abandon LOTR until Ottawacker Jr. gets older… I’ll give it another day and we will try again.