DAZE WORK: Cabin fever ... catch it!

It’s Sunday, 12:02 p.m., Year of Our Lord 2022. Finally broke out of self-imposed 90-hour snow exile.

Good thing, too, I was fresh out of frozen dinners, mayo and Cheez-Its.

It had been since mid-afternoon Wednesday that I’d hunkered down at home, riding out the storm and watching reruns of “NCIS” between naps. So for some 90 hours, I hadn’t seen people, talked to people or looked them in the eye and told them a story, so pardon me if my Kroger cart and I blocked the aisle a time or two or three on Sunday afternoon. Swapping stories, everyone can commiserate on where you’ve been and what you’ve been doing since Wednesday.

Meanwhile, I desperately need a haircut (help, Roxann!), haven’t shaved for a week and my wardrobe has shrunk to sweat pants and hoodies, although my appearance is probably still a bit shy of Sasquatch or the Unabomber.

That’s what happens when you develop early onset cabin fever.

It’s not like Covid and all the quarantining we’ve gone through. It’s different when you’re hale and hearty (or as hale and hearty as you’re gonna get) and want to go someplace but all the obstacles in your path are telling you no. After all, there’s only so much TV you can watch. I had my fill during the time I was restricted to working from home in 2019 and 2020. I wasn’t ready for a repeat.

Looking outside at bedtime Wednesday night, there’s not much snow to worry about but the sidewalks and streets look pretty icy. And since I like my bones all in one piece, thank you, I’ve made the executive decision to stay home. Being well stocked with Marie Callender meals, lunch meat, bread and milk, food shouldn’t be an issue, not even for an old newspaperman, and you know we have plenty of issues.

Wednesday night has morphed into Thursday morning and on the way to visit the bathroom, I peer outside to see a fine snow falling steadily, slowly disguising my gas grill and fire pit into indescribable lumps out back. It looks much more desolate now, predawn under the streetlight in the Northwood Addition. I’ve heard stories that “back in the day” (when was that day, anyway?) neighborhood kids used some of these yards -- especially the terraced ones, like mine -- as sledding hills.

A pot of coffee and a piece of toast later and I’m snuggled back in for some TV. Oh, look, there’s an “NCIS” marathon. I’ll admit, I’ve gotten hooked on the show and its characters, a series I somehow missed in its original run but have found interesting enough that I recently dreamed I was buddies with actor Mark Harmon (I have actually interviewed him many moons ago). Yep, me and Leroy Jethro Gibbs throwing a football around at Harmon’s palatial estate off Martha’s Vineyard or The Hamptons or someplace equally swanky with a seaside backdrop.

Meanwhile, back on Earth, I realize I don’t even own a shovel to scoop out the sidewalk to my car. Last summer Kroger had a couple plastic shovels marked down to three bucks for being out of season but I passed on the purchase, in hindsight a bad decision on my part. Actually, I might have an old, bent-up aluminum snow shovel -- a remnant of my first marriage -- in the garage. But that’s a 50-yard dash out the back door, so that’s off the table. And now it looks like there’s too much snow to make good with a broom removal effort unless you’re the Wicked Witch of the West.

While I pondered weak and weary, I heard a gentle rapping, rapping at my back door. When I open it, it’s not The Raven, it’s my neighbor, scooping the six-inch snow off my back steps and digging a path to my Jeep about 20 feet away. Turns out DePauw has canceled classes, so instead of teaching, she’s shoveling out the neighborhood. “I love to shovel snow,” she notes as she proceeds to dig a path across my front lawn for access by the mailman.

For me, just getting to the car will be an adventure, then there’s cleaning it off and starting it up before even thinking about going somewhere in this mess. Yet you’re beginning to get more than a little stir crazy.

Getting overcome by cabin fever must be what it’s like for the family dog when he’s left home alone. You find that comfy spot on the couch and initially a good snooze sounds great. Then you get tired of laying around, so you get up and roam around, look out the front window to see the snow piling up and quickly run to the back door to see it it’s the same on the other side of the house. Heck, I’ve done that myself.

You’re ready to go out, maybe even swaying back and forth, ready to charge out the door. But it’s too cold, too windy, too snowy, too icy ... It all finally sinks in and it’s back to the couch for you.

We want you on that couch. We need you on that couch.

Cabin fever ... there’s no vaccine for it.