Surreal Moments in 2020

[Kyle]

I just want to use this for us to just post snippets of weird, surreal moments that occurred this year. They don't all have to be monumental- they can be as small and personal as you want, or as big and consequential. It's just been such a weird surreal year that I feel like we're not going to remember how off this all felt in the future.

Some examples:

My wife, two of my daughters and two of my sons marching in a Black Lives Matter protest in downtown Austin while all wearing masks with hundreds of other people.

Watching the leader of the free world get trolled like a puppet. I remember seeing Don Lemon (my guilty pleasure) on CNN talking shit directly into the camera in his dulcet, ultra-calm tones, knowing that Trump was listening to him. Just going after him- all very calm- telling him that it's okay to be scared and insecure, but he has to stop being a race-baiter. Then when I checked twitter, I see Trump spew outrage in real time over the very thing I was watching on TV.

Watching a friend go from someone in March who was deathly afraid of Covid, to a person in July who refused to wear a mask and was (and is) convinced that Covid is a hoax perpetrated by democrats and the media. What was particularly surreal is that this friend is extremely intelligent, but I saw them devolve from manipulation over the conservative full court press of misinformation.

[Kyle]

Seeing my positive Covid test and actually having to think about whether I'd have to go to the hospital and be put under sedation.

[Tahlvin]

What's been a bit surreal for me around this was having to post-pone my son's pre-paid high school class trip to France over the summer, and now, almost 10 months after this all hit the fan, thinking about whether the trip that was rescheduled to summer 2021 will actually happen or not. And if it doesn't happen, will we even be able to get a refund on what we paid upfront, or will the travel company even still be solvent after possibly two summers of having to cancel all of their school trips.

I remember when this first started, saying that GenCon would not happen, and I believe it was Kyle that said he thought it would still go on as planned. And here we are all these months later, and I'm starting to wonder the exact same thing about GenCon 2021. Has the current administration botched vaccine purchasing and distribution to the point that we will still not be able to have conventions over the coming summer?

[Kyle]

What's been a bit surreal for me around this was having to post-pone my son's pre-paid high school class trip to France over the summer, and now, almost 10 months after this all hit the fan, thinking about whether the trip that was rescheduled to summer 2021 will actually happen or not. And if it doesn't happen, will we even be able to get a refund on what we paid upfront, or will the travel company even still be solvent after possibly two summers of having to cancel all of their school trips.

I remember when this first started, saying that GenCon would not happen, and I believe it was Kyle that said he thought it would still go on as planned. And here we are all these months later, and I'm starting to wonder the exact same thing about GenCon 2021. Has the current administration botched vaccine purchasing and distribution to the point that we will still not be able to have conventions over the coming summer?

No kidding. I had tickets to GenCon and Austin City Limits Festival. And I had to sit down and make a decision to demand a refund because I was worried they'd try to go forward anyways, and then maybe go bankrupt and not have money to refund me in the future. That was weird.

Also this: runs at the grocery stores on weird things like ramen and flour and salt. I can get a pound of salt for 40 cents. How did we have salt shortages?

[Tahlvin]

Other surreal moments of 2020 were celebrating my son's key milestones under unusual circumstances: turning 16, getting his drivers license, getting his first job.

[Phoebe]

On my last Costco trip in person before big quarantine period in spring, lots of people were crowding in for big last-minute runs because the toilet paper shortage was beginning in earnest. I saw an odd pair of white people, one older man, one younger woman, pushing a cart with two small girls in it, about age 3-4, my guess one Black and one Latina, and the girls were crying and repeatedly asking for mommy, and the way the adults with them responded made me feel something so bad at absolute gut/animal level, which was reinforced by the way the adults looked at me when they turned around and saw someone had silently joined them in the aisle without their knowing it. The woman cracked a weird joke and they moved away quickly. I continued on down the next aisle with them normally, as we were going the same way, and they abandoned whatever they had been looking for in that aisle and took off for the other corner of the store. But I was so disturbed that I actually followed them stealthily and took photos of all four people just in case. Then I talked to my husband and a person who works in this area about it and we really didn't know what to do with either the information or the photos. So that sits with me hard, like an undigested seed. I know in my heart something wasn't right. It's hard to tell the story after the fact, but I think anyone would have been suspicious, and people who have experienced that kind of childhood fear of crazy abusive people would have that same gut feeling of panic.