My so-called COVID-19 condo life

My wife stood in our galley kitchen and handed me the plastic bag, her gesture a non-verbal communication signaling another honey-do assignment.

Dispose of the day’s compost.

But in these conspiratorial days of COVID-19, this bag full of coffee grounds and banana peels might as well have been a mysterious manila envelope, with me in the role of a stoop-shouldered Mr. Hunt, my wife the commanding voice from headquarters, announcing, “This is your mission, should you choose to accept it.”

Another Mission Impossible.

For us, the day marked six weeks in physical and emotional confinement, two people from vastly-different cultures cohabitating inside a small but sunny condominium not far south of the fog banks that blanket the city of San Francisco.

That’s forty-two days. Forty-two nights. Forty-two neighborhood walks. One-hundred-twenty-six meals taken together. Countless toilet flushes and bottles of red wine uncorked.

But chances are, our shut-in experience has been different from yours, if you partake in the so-called American Dream of owning your own home.

My wife and I normally live apart, running a pair of households in two states, holding down two different careers that, for now, have conspired to separate us.

In early March, with the national shutdown looming, I loaded up my 20-year-old Mercedes and made an overnight drive from Las Vegas to San Francisco.

If I was going to be home for the foreseeable future, I was going to do it with her.

What I had decided, in effect, was to trade my 2,400-square-feet of individual living space, with its backyard jacuzzi and detached office, for the comparatively cramped confines of a 775-square-foot condominium.

Ah, such is love, I guess.

Just like that, I was joining the ranks of the nation’s high-density housing, which normally would be just fine, if we all weren’t living in an era with viral spores lurking around every corner, on every door handle, in possibly every breath of your neighbor’s morning greeting.

These days, high-density means high-anxiety.

All of this said, I accepted the day’s mission to dump the compost bag.

But first, I prepared.

I donned a pair of plastic gloves and my cloth mask. I opened the door and tentatively gazed down the long hallway toward a far-away disposal unit.

The hell with it, I said.

I took one last drag of my cigarette (a little invented drama here, but you get the picture) and took off down the gauntlet, that endless hallway, holding my breath as I passed each closed door, praying that none would suddenly swing open, forcing me into yet another uncomfortable encounter with another human being.

It was my own warped version of The Shining, and I was Johnny.

When I got to the door, I opened it with my gloved hand, turned on the light switch and pulled on the chute handle, careful not to make contact with any surface.

Mission accomplished, I hurried back down the hall and quickly closed the door.

Then I removed my gloves, carefully deposited them in the trash, took off my shoes and placed them on the balcony, washed my hands thoroughly and collapsed onto the couch.

Whew!

Overly dramatic?

I’m afraid not. The COVID-19 condo life means risking your health to do such mundane things as washing your clothes in the community laundry room and retrieving your mail from its slot in the community postal area.

Every door you reach for, every light switch your trip, has probably been touched by a million grubby, possibly virus-laden fingers.

That elevator button might as well be the nuclear device.

It wasn’t always this way.

Just a few short months ago, this swanky condo complex with it tennis courts and duck pond thrived with activity. We hopped into the community jacuzzi under towering oak trees, took showers in the clubhouse, lounged naked in the same-sex saunas, passed closely to one another on the wooded walkways, all without batting an eye.

But dissension lurked.

After reports of a few unit break ins and postal boxes swiped from the lobby, management circulated a memo warning residents not to allow strangers to follow them inside as they entered the main doors of their building.

Many took the warning literally, closing the door in the faces of their neighbor down the hall, even though they’d seen them around for years.

“But they didn’t have a key!” people said. “I’m only following the rules.”

Then came COVID-19.

Now, management issued another memo.

The office would be locked.

Don’t even think of trying to knock on our door to express a concern or file a complaint.

Our once-happy-go-lucky condominium community had turned into some grim apartment block in Cold War Russia, with neighbor ratting out neighbor.

Two-by-fours have been hammered across the benches that surround the duck pond, so my neighbors can't congregate, or sit for an unguarded moment n the sun.

My walks around the condo grounds now feel more like some deadly Mature-only video game, with cartoon assassins lurching out from every conceivable angle and you have to take them out with your firepower before they take you down.

In this 1,000-unit complex with its myriad of garages, crawl spaces, crannies and cul-de-sacs, there are a lot of places to get ambushed.

In my blurry, quarantine-hazed mind, there’s even a points system, the highest values given to grouchy old men, dudes with annoying dogs and that woman who closed the door in my face a few weeks ago.

I do everything wearing gloves.

Rifle packages in the lobby to read the address label, foozle with the tiny key to our mailbox, fumble with quarters for the coin-operated dryers, open doors to stairwells.

It seems so long ago now that I heard the carefree swack of tennis balls on the community courts.

Those volleys have turned into dismissive looks.

“Where’s your mask, dude?”

To break from our forced community, my wife and I take walk along the streets of the adjacent town of Hillsborough, which just a few years ago featured the nation’s highest medium income of $263,456 — home to Silicon Valley moguls, actors and athletes.

As we walk past towering gates and sprawling mansions, I think to myself, “These people don’t have to make any gauntlets down community hallways!”

Too quickly we return to our lives with the other 99%.

But we’re bearing up with our shut-down condo lives.

Just the other day, I was making a run down to the community dumpsters in the community garage to deposit another load of recyclables.

One by one, my neighbors were making their own solitary, somber procession to the trash bins. 

Gloved. 

Masked.

And then humanity startled me.

A woman I’d never seen before suddenly did something unusual in this Virus Land.

She said hello.

In a bright, cheery voice, as though she meant it.

I put away my imaginary video game weapon and for a moment felt human again.

Almost.

“Hi,” I said.