Trying to keep from going crazy while quarantined during the ‘2020 COVID 19 pandemic’ was a full-time job. During the second week of quarantine, I was getting bored. My husband was spending eight to twelve hours a day on video and audio calls, running his company from home. I, on the other hand, was spending my days doing laundry, painting, ordering games and crafts for my grandkids, and I was hungry for some interaction with people. While he was on a two hour video call with some of the leaders at work I decided to entertain myself. I pulled a sock out of his drawer and put some eyes and glasses on the sock. Ever so quietly, I cracked open the door to his office. My husband was sitting at his desk with his back towards me and I could see there were eleven faces on his computer screen. I opened the door a tiny bit more, put the sock on my hand, and in the crack of the door, I began giggling as I had that sock puppet do some things that I thought were hilarious. I made that puppet look like it was walking up and down stairs…. talking to itself…biting my husband’s bald head, and even singing a song. While I quietly laughed and thought I was absolutely hilarious, my husband just continued on with his meeting like nothing was going on in the background. After getting no response from him or any of the eleven viewers, I finished my little puppet show, I disassembled my sock puppet, and went back to painting. After a bit, he came out of his office to get a drink. I asked him if he enjoyed my puppet show. He said what puppet show? I explained the whole thing, and he laughed. I asked him what was so funny…. And he continued to explain that he had ‘blurred’ his background before he started the meeting, therefore no one, including him, had any idea I had put on a puppet show! The joke was on me, because no one had seen my little show. The only person that I had entertained that day was ME.
For a moment, I was very disappointed that I had ‘wasted’ all that time while I made a puppet, figured out where to put on my ‘show’, put on that puppets show to lighten the mood of the video call, then disassemble everything. Then I got to thinking… I was not able to entertain the people from my husband’s work like I had planned, I was able to distract my self for quite some time with the puppet antics. I made myself laugh until I cried. In that moments, I found joy.
“Be glad in the Lord and be full of joy, you who are right with God! Sing for joy all you who are pure in heart!” Psalm 32:11 NLT
