‘Rona sucks. We know this. We’ve lived this strange new life for a few weeks now and it has been quite the opposite of fun.

There’s nothing to do, no place to go, no one to meet up with, nothing, zilch, nada. A trip to the grocery store is suddenly the highlight of your week - if you’re allowed out of the house and not in some type of self-imposed mandatory quarantine situation.

Sure there are Zoom happy hours and lots of things you just discovered that are possible to deep clean with a literal toothbrush in your house. And as an added bonus for you homeowners, Home Depot remains open as an essential business! But for the most part, it’s just you and your dog hanging out day in and day out taking on the world together, one dog-friendly park at a time.

I’ve realized though that there are some very specific people that are absolutely thriving these days, or who at least are getting some modicum of satisfaction from these unprecedented times.

My eye doctor, for example, must be absolutely over the moon thrilled at these recent developments. She has been harassing me for the past several years to stop wearing my contacts for so many hours throughout the day lest I ruin my eyes forever. I absolutely despise driving in my glasses, or commuting on the train, or going to the gym, or doing any sort of movement at all really where your face warms up even in the slightest if I’m wearing eyeglasses. But thanks to COVID-19 and all the Netflix watching I’ve been getting done from the comfort of my couch, I’ve been able to just not put my contacts in for days at a time. Call it a corona-time miracle. I call it the beginnings of the ‘quarantine 15.’

Gym-fluencers (did I just make up this word?) aka people who pretty much exclusively post videos of themselves working out at home on social media are also just soaking it up right now. For these guys, life literally has not changed, except now they are probably getting more likes from people whose gyms have closed and are jonesing for an OTF workout. (I may or may not be one of those people. Again, I mention the ‘quarantine 15.’)

Dogs. Okay, I know dogs are not people. But man’s best friend is absolutely thriving these days. For them, quarantine means unlimited hours of cuddling and back scratches, mile-long walks in the middle of when you would normally be working, and treat dispensing hours scattered periodically throughout the day for doing nothing other than just looking cute. Those dogs (like my own, for example) who need to be physically touching you at all times of the day are even more elated. (Cats, as most of us know, are a different story.)

People who hate their coworkers and despise when their boss breathes down their neck from nine to five every day are not hating life right now either. You no longer need to sit in fear that the chatty and slightly smelly colleague of yours will corner you in the kitchen on the way back to your cubicle. Or that your boss will glance over his shoulder and see that you are browsing Poshmark to see what cute sweater to buy next instead of working on that horrendous looking Excel file that, let’s be honest, no one is going to look at when you’re done with it anyway. Of course, you have no one to each lunch with these days either (except the dog, still), but beggars can’t be choosers.

I realize this is not an exhaustive list. (Maybe that’s for a future post?) And I realize too that this is a very short list compared to the tons of people who are hating life right now in corona-times. But there’s always a silver lining (allegedly), right?