(Image: Private Media)

Lockdown has hit. You’re a recently single extrovert stuck inside with one housemate and a cat. What do you to distract yourself from the growing sense of existential dread?

The ‘look for lockdown advice’ stage

You call your friend from Melbourne who survived Melbourne’s 112-day lockdown to ask how she coped. 

“Just stop watching the news — it’s all depressing anyway,” she says.

She’s definitely forgotten what you do for work. 

She posts you her unfinished embroidery kit to get stuck in to.

The ‘everything’s a game’ stage

After the 18th game of Crash Team Racing on the PlayStation with your housemate, the endlessly looping theme music is starting to sound catchy and your thumb has turned numb — so you take a break. 

Your housemate challenges you to a game of poker. He wants to play with cash but you’re reluctant, mainly because he only taught you the rules of the game 15 minutes ago. You compromise: the loser has to eat three habanero peppers. 

The habaneros are the first thing that has made you feel alive this week. 

The home improvement stage

Looking around your overpriced, rundown share house, you think maybe you’ll do a bit of DIY to spruce up your living space — given you’re spending so much time in it. 

You spend $200 on electric tools from Bunnings that you have no idea how to use, but assume there’s a YouTube channel somewhere for that.

By the time the package arrives, you’ve forgotten you ordered it and wonder why on earth you’d need 100 sheets of sanding paper.

Instead, you decide to nail a curtain rail into the wooden window frame — of the many things you purchased, a stud finder wasn’t one of them. 

The curtains fall down in the middle of the night.