These strange and unprecedented times bring about all sorts of challenges. Staying safe by covering your hands, washing your face, and singing “Out of Space”; home working, home schooling, home haircuts, home brew; somehow surviving without caramel Magnum ice creams as the supermarket delivery substituted strawberry ones instead. Perhaps the greatest challenge (apart from the whole Magnum business) is knowing what day it is as one minutes blends into another in a meaningless procession of hours differentiated occasionally by the presence or absence of sunlight behind a curtain that’s never drawn, as sometimes it’s handy to be aware that it’s Wednesday so the bins need to go out, or it’s Thursday so you probably ought to log on before 10am for the weekly team meeting (it’s starting to get a bit suspicious that you suffer from regular ‘internet outages’ completely unrelated to oversleeping).
Fortunately computers and phones are around to keep us informed at a click or a swipe, but perhaps you left your phone somewhere incredibly remote and difficult to get to, like another room. Fear not, the solution is to hand! Or to foot, at any rate. Socks with the days of the week printed on them. As long as you’ve put socks on (granted, quite an assumption) a quick glance down towards the ankle region means you can immediately work out what day it is by consulting this handy guide:
(Wait, handy guide? Surely the point of the socks is that, on Thursday, you wear the socks with ‘Thursday’ on them, and therefore know it’s Thursday? Would that it were so simple…)
Monday: It’s Monday! You’re out of bed, great start! Even had a shower, well done! All ready to tackle the new week! Come on, Monday, let’s get up and at ’em with those clean matching Monday socks!
Monday (but a bit whiffy): It’s Tuesday. There’s no point showering two days in a row, is there? Who’s going to notice? Better for the environment as well. No point putting fresh socks on, let’s just grab yesterdays.
Tuesday: It’s Wednesday. Quick shower, I guess, let’s really make the effort and put clean socks on. Thursday… Saturday… damn, can’t find the ‘Wednesday’ socks. Probably still in the laundry basket from last week. Oh well, Tuesday’s pretty close.
Monday on the left foot, Tuesday on the right foot: It’s Thursday. Oh, god, why didn’t I set the alarm, I’ll just pull a dressing gown on, if it was good enough for Arthur Dent it’ll do for home working, it’s freezing though so I’ll need socks, got to be another day in ‘Tuesday’, where’s the left one? Oh never mind.
Friday on the right foot, non-matching green sock on the left: It’s Friday, probably. Maybe Saturday. Better log on, just in case. Might be Monday of the next week, come to think of it. Did I do anything yesterday? Or the day before? What is a ‘day’? Who am I talking to? Why are you in my bedroom?! Get out! Get out, I say! Oh, but just before you do… you don’t happen to know what day it is, do you?