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When this pandemic started and my husband and I began our safer-at-home lifestyle, I was sure I'd come out of it 10 pounds lighter and speaking French. Instead I've gained five pounds and the only parlez-vou I can say is fromage. More fromage!

I've since discovered that there is something about a pandemic that touches our deepest, most insecure places. And for many of us, it results in hoarding anything that makes us feel safer. Duh, right? Just look at Costco and our toilet paper problems in this country. I thought I was bigger than that. Of course I did manage a trip to Costco just a day before the famous run on toilet paper began - so I'm still good on paper products for another six years.

But what I've discovered is that my hoarding has extended into several other unexpected areas of my life. It's as if the world will end tomorrow and I won't have had enough of it - or conversely, the world will become a dystopian nightmare and I'll be fighting to survive alone in my basement (never mind that I have a husband and grown children whom I really do trust to rescue me).

What have I been hoarding? Good Lord. We don't eat much meat in this house, but when I heard there would be less pork, I bought $22 worth of St. Louis ribs, which I simmered in a crockpot for an evening feast and then woke up the next morning asking myself why I don't feel the need to hoard food for a healthy cleanse? I have four packages of chicken/feta/spinach brats in the freezer and eight packages of organic chicken breasts and thighs. I buy as much frozen fruit as fresh - and it's summer! I have been buying brie, and Irish cheddar and Asiago. Puffed pastry and salmon.

I really am not a rich old lady wearing my frozen chicken breasts like sparkly bobbles on my fingers. I work in non-profit and sometimes wonder if I make as much in my work as I do making jokes in my spare time.

Part of it, I know, is that I don't want to have to go out more than is absolutely necessary. But there is certainly more to the story. I've also made a pretty good run on my favorite wooden puzzle maker. So while I'm eating cheese and crackers (and did I mention magic cookie bars? A lot of magic cookie bars), I'm trying not to get all of my puzzle pieces sticky.

Of course life has been a little more dull than usual. Maybe that's another part of the issue. My husband has been telling me lately that he thinks I'm an incredible cook, but I suspect that dinner has just become a much more exciting part of our day than it was three months ago.

I have read 25 pages of a book since going into our shell. That's a lot less than I usually read. I'm walking less, cleaning less and streaming more programming than I did when the world was normal. Every day I tell myself I'll meditate a little more, dig some more in the garden, write another note to one of my senators. I should at least be sewing masks, right? Ugghh. Instead I just find myself saying, "More fromage!"

- Jana Grzenda

Jana Grzenda (formerly Jana Barracks) is an award-winning columnist who chooses to wallow in dark humor while still taking this bleak pandemic very seriously. As of this writing, she lives (mostly on the main floor of her house) with her husband in Longmont, Colorado.