I don’t know about you, but since March, my house has been infected with what I call “Pandemic Sprawl”. Pandemic Sprawl is basically the accumulation of stuff arriving by FedEx, UPS, and the USPS. All the stuff is essential, of course, and always seems to arrive in oversize cardboard boxes. The boxes can be dispatched to the recycle, but the contents remains.

The stuff never seems to go where its needed, rather it remains on the tables, the counters, an the couches. It seems to grow as if it had a life of its own. And I think it may, because every day when I return from work, there is a new pile. Food for the animals. Gifts for friends, business associates, and grandchildren. Geeky collectibles. Everything necessary to survive the pandemic, delivered. We don’t dare go to the store because the customers can be more dangerous than the virus!

So, all this gave me an idea that I want to share.

A new attribute for Alexa: Imbue every flat surface in my house with sensors that will, whenever something is placed on it, trigger an alarm, like the scream of a young child or fingernails scraping a coffin lid, that would continue until the unauthorized item is removed.

Stuff accumulates on tabletops like fungus on a headstone. Although I have no proof, as I have never witnessed it directly, I believe that the stuff on the tables metamorphoses through some dark occult process. It simply grows, multiplies, and transforms until it appears to actually be an artifact of the surface upon which it is planted.

Finally, as if from some Lovecraftian horror, I know that the stuff–that accumulated wealth of the necessary–will engulf us and our souls will be trapped forever in some nerdy tchotchke, damned to dust and disorder until relegated to the landfill.

Well, this has taken a dark turn, hasn’t it? What can you expect during a pandemic? My best advice is to put a net around the pandemic sprawl if it has contaminated your home. Only buy what you need, and only in the quantities you need. But most importantly, watch that it doesn’t multiply itself. Catch through the corner of your eye.

And one more thing. Never feed it after midnight.

©2020 Kevin Fraleigh