Reply All - #159 The Attic and Closet Show

Episode Date: March 21, 2020

This week, we open up the phone lines and check in on everybody. If you want to know what we're up to in the coming weeks, check out replyall.online. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

From Gimlet, well, from my apartment, this is PJ Vote. So back in the very early days of Gimlet, a lot of our episodes were recorded from this tiny little, barely a studio that we got off Craigslist. It was technically called a whisper room. We called the bungalow. Anyway, just picture a phone booth, a slightly larger than average phone booth, except for all black, completely black inside. Fuzzy walls, extremely hot. One of the first things we did when it was clear the company was actually. going to work was move into real studios that had room for people in them. But when we did that,

I actually kept that original studio, like got it disassembled, put it in my basement. I just sort of figured, you know, you never know. Maybe one day it'll come in handy. So that is where I'm talking to you from today and for the foreseeable future in my apartment, in a closet, in a smaller room inside that closet. And the version of reply all that we're going to be making for now is not the show that we had planned on making for you because that would not make any sense at all. We're trying to figure out how to be here and with you guys through everything that's going to happen. What combination of information and making sense of the world and fun and distraction is going to feel right and appropriate? We don't know. We are going to figure that in front of you.

This week, we were not scheduled to have an episode, but we wanted to be here, and so we're here. and what we all decided we wanted to do was open up the phone lines. We knew that everybody on Earth essentially was experiencing the exact same thing with very similar worries and we just wanted to hear how people were doing. So I got set up in this closet, in this little room.

Alex got set up in the attic of his house. All right, guys, I have to go back upstairs. Can I kiss, please? Damiano was producing this. He was in his apartment in Brooklyn. Okay. I'm going to start this calling, okay? Okay. We took calls Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.

And even in that time, what we heard was a world that was changing very rapidly. So this is a snapshot of this week in that world. I'm not recording. Okay, I'm recording. Oh, shit. I'm not recording. Fuck. How are you feeling, Alex?

I'm exhausted. I was just laying on my back in my attic, staring through the skylight. Like on the floor? Yeah. Yeah, that's how I'm feeling mostly. Okay, so are we opening up the phone lines? Apparently we are. It seems that way. I mean, we're waiting on Damiano to open the phone line for us.

Okay, I can open the up right now. Are you guys ready? Yeah. Okay, here we go. All right. We're live? Yeah. All right, I think that here we go. I think we got a call. Okay.

Hello? Hi. Hi, who's this? Hello? Hello? Hello? This is Zorro calling in from Paris. Zorro?

Yeah, just like the hero. What the hell? That's such a cool name. Thanks, guys. Is that a common name? No, goodness. My parents had a real fun one. Sorry to ask you about something that you must be so tired of being asked about, but that's really cool.

No, no problem. How are things in Paris? How are things in Paris? Paris has gone into its first day of lockdown. And what does that look like? It looks like the streets are empty. Police and soon military are going about them. If you're out in groups or if you're out without a good reason

or if you're out without a certificate that says that you're going to work or to the bakery or to the pharmacy or to walk your dog, you get an 80 to 130 euro fine. How do you get the certificates? You can download it on the internet. or form fillet on a PDF on your phone, they'll accept that. But lots of people are being turned back to their homes. What does it feel like?

It's kind of ghostly. Are you, like, are you hunkered down by yourself? Are you hunkered down with family, friends? I'm with, I'm with my girlfriend and her parents. And they're two yappy dolls, so that's always good. Parents? Yeah. How did that happen?

Well, as you can tell probably from the accent, I'm not originally French. My mom's French, but I grew up in Australia, and so all of my family lives quite a way out, so I don't have very many people to hunker down with. Have they said how long the lockdown's going to be in place for? Yeah, so on, shit, that was last night. Yeah, last night, Macron announced it for 15 days. but the health agency predictions are that it's going to last 45 days. And a lot of us think they're just slow-balling us.

They say 15 now, and then 15 in 15 days. If you go to your window right now and look out the window, what do you see? Quiet street, the apartment building in front of me. There's no dog walkers. There would be a lot of dog walkers at this time of day. The church bells haven't even wrong to tell you the truth. I know that this is not the most important question, but where are the dogs going to the bathroom?

You can walk your dogs, but you can't. It's a good question. You can walk your dogs, but it has to be in a short perimeter around your house, and you have to be alone. You can't talk to other people while you do it. It's so, it's so weird. It's like, sometimes I know that it's more serious and more big than this, but sometimes it feels like don't touch the floor,

but with going outside, you know, like you don't realize just like you don't realize that you're dependent on leaving your house. Oh, for real. And you should have seen how the French reacted to it. So on I think Thursday, McCorm said, all right, so you can't go to bars and cafes. That night, every French person went out to get drunk before the end of the world. They called it the last, the last big drink before the end of the world. So of course, virus spreads everywhere. Then the bars and cafes are shut down. So where does everybody go? Everybody goes. Everybody goes. go to the park. It's a beautiful sunny day. Everybody goes to the park. So, of course,

they're all catching each other's frisbees and the virus spreads around. And then now we're in confinement and people, I've even heard of people walking their dogs to other people's house so that then those people can walk their dogs to other people's house so that everybody has an excuse to go outside and meet other people. Did you go out to the bars that last night? No. I stayed home and played D&D with friends, to be honest. With the people who were going out, what did they say? Like, if you say to them, like, why are you doing it? What did they say?

Well, like, look, we've all got it anyway. We're all carriers at this point. We're young. None of us going to die. Come and have a drink. Like, we didn't stop drinking after the terror attacks in 2015, for example. So why would we stop now? It's a common phrase.

It's hard. Like, I think that that is a bad, I think that's a dangerous reaction. But it's funny because it is. is like normally when something big, when a big crisis happens. It's like all the things we're supposed to do normally. It's like come together, be resilient in the sense of like act as if your life hasn't changed. Yeah. And that was the call.

After the batter clan attacks, we tried to go out as much as possible, keep the cafes alive, keep the culture alive. And that's the French reaction. It's to like go out and live and fight the sadness and the darkness with with liveliness. and drinking and partying and carrying on, but this time we can't do that, and it just feels fucking weird. What are you saying in the...

Oh, go ahead, Alex. I live in New Jersey, and last night after I got off work, I was just, like, so exhausted, and after I'd put the kids to bed, and my wife was like, go take a walk. And I did, and it was bitter cold out, and I was still like,

this is the best part of my day so far, just being able to, like, be outside and remember that there is something beyond the walls of this house. I can't imagine just, like, needing a permit. mission slip every time I want to go, you know? Yeah, it's, it's pretty wild and as well, just the way it shuts down social interaction. Now, nobody says, hello, you sort of shift to the other sidewalk, kind of nod your head

awkwardly, hope that the police don't walk by and ask you why you're going and, like, pretend that you need to buy bread or something. It's weird. And what are you guys doing in the apartment? Oh, you know, there's Wi-Fi, there's Netflix. Yeah, lots of board games. walking the dogs over and over again. The dogs are like the key to freedom. I know. I can't imagine not having a dog in Paris right now. Yes.

If you don't have a dog, you can't go out. I wonder if people are going to hear this in the U.S. and be like, I've got to foster real fast. Because, I mean, in New York, the mayor just said, he said, like, he's going to make a decision about shelter in place, but he expects to do it in 48 hours. And the way he was talking about it, it felt like that's probably what's going to happen. I don't know if it's going to be the same level of strictness or severity,

but it looks like it's just where the cities have to go. I hope for your guys' sake that it doesn't get there. Can you, do you mind emailing us and maybe we'll, like, I don't know what, we don't know what we're going to do. Like, we think we're going to probably take calls a bunch of days this week, but maybe you can be our Paris correspondent. I would love that. Thanks so much. Thank you. Thank you.

Great to talk. Have a good day. Yeah, great to talk. Hello? Hello? Hi, who's this? Hi, this is Amanda. Hi, how's going?

Hi. Where are you? I'm in New Jersey, New Brunswick. Oh, okay. That's the state that Alex is in. Yeah, I'm nearby. Yeah, exactly. How are you doing?

Yeah, how's it going? I'm okay. I wanted to share a kind of like petty thing that I experienced this weekend. Both petty and systemic. That makes sense. Like petty and systemic? It's both petty. on the individual level, but it's also systemic.

It's related to what's going on right now. Yeah, please share. Okay, so, like, I went to visit my friend, just like in Boston this past weekend. She was one other girl who went to college with, and the girl is very active on, like, social media in terms of, like, sharing social justice-related things. So that's, like, her personality,

and I've known her for a long time for that. and she said something over this weekend. It was like a screenshot of a tweet that I think is going around, and the tweet was like saying that this whole pandemic is exposing the fact that women, or domestic labor, especially domestic labor, women has always been undervalued, haven't had like an economic value because it's gone invisible, unpaid, that kind of thing.

And the fact that people are like scrambling, to deal with this situation kind of exposes that fact. And so this girl shared this tweet on her Instagram story. And I just saw that. But the, like, petty thing that I'm now working in is that he is the roommate of the friend I was busy. And what I learned this weekend is that she has never, she does not know how to clean up after herself, like, at all. So like, like, truly, wait, hold on, can you just really paint me a picture of, like, how slobby this person is? I can pay you a, I can pay your clear picture of what happened this weekend.

So, like, on Saturday, I think, she, like, for lunch, I saw her make a taco bowl. She opened a package of, like, taco shells and left the package opened on the counter all night long. They're going to get stale. And lettuce bits, ruined all over the counter. And then for dinner, what was true? Lettuce bits. Oh. Like bits of tomatoes and lettuce.

Yes. And then for dinner, this was the first meal. And then for the second meal, they made, her and, like, the third room made, like, roast chicken breast. And they didn't finish it. They left all the pan on the stove top. There was still, like, two whole breasts on it.

And they made a frozen pizza, and there was still two slices of frozen pizza. The next morning, it was all still there, completely exerted. And the kicker is that I, I, like, took a look, and under the pan of chicken breast on the stove top, there was mouth poop everywhere. Oh, God. Yeah.

Yeah. Who do they think is going to clean that up? Who, what invisible labor do they think is going to take care of that? Exactly. Exactly. This is what I talked about, you guys. Okay, so, like, the friend that I visited, my friend, like, the only one who cleansed up after them. So she told me that she takes out of the trash, like, four out of five times of, like, or, like,

the week and like she's the one who cleans up after them and like this girl who's talking about like unpaid care labor for women is literally like being cleaned up for it by her by her roommate like not paying her for it and like it just like boggles me it bottomed my mind that like this like that does exist that like this in her mind that like she could hold both these things that one that's fantastic it's like you agree with the idea you just think that she's the world's worst spokesperson for that idea. Yeah. And so, like, really, I just want, like, if anyone is listening to this and, like,

is stuck at home and quarantine with their roommate, like, could help after yourself. Like, we're all... All right. Stay sane. Stay safe. Yeah, take care. All right. All right.

Were you a good roommate, Alex? No. Terrible. Yeah, me neither. Terrible roommate. What was your worst roommates in? God, there's so many. I don't even know where to begin.

Didn't you have a roommate who just like, almost like the first day was like, I'm actually not going to do this and bounced on the lease? Yes. You tried to bounce on the lease. No, no, no, no, no. I had a roommate who was there for like a month. And she was like, I don't want to live with you guys. And then it was a period of time in my life and I was incredibly poor. So what we did is we got some drywall.

This is the most logical solution. Rather than find a roommate, we got dry. wall, wrapped it in carpet we got at the recycle center, completely wrapped it around the first floor of our house and then just had house shows to make up the rent. That's such a stupid, fun solution. Did it work? Yes. Did you get good bands? I mean, no one famous, but yeah, we got some decent bands. But there was a guy who lived next door to us who constantly threatened to kill us because we had loud shows

and had people. Like, actually it was like, I'm going to murder you or like, I'm going to kill you. Huh. But you didn't take that seriously. Not seriously enough to stop having the shows. Yeah,

and then wasn't there a point where you had like a very old man who was living in your basement for some reason? Oh yeah. He was like the... What was it deal with that? He was like a guy who used to hang out in the Diag,

which is like downtown Ann Arbor and used to just like, like recite body poetry and scream. Body? Yeah. Like he would like just scream offensive sort of verse that he wrote. And he needed a place to live. And so he came and lived at our house for a while.

Was he in the practice space or is that a different house? A different house, but he was in our practice space on a futon. That's funny. And when he moved in and we put him on the futon, the owner of the futon was Like, why didn't anybody ask me? Why didn't anybody ask him? Well, you know, I'm a bad roommate. I think we've established.

Hi, you've reached the reply-all call-in line. We're either on the other line and we've stopped taking calls for the day. But feel free to leave a message or try calling back. Just be aware that if you do leave a voicemail, we might use it in the podcast. All right, thank you. Hi, this is Margaret. I live in the Midwest and I'm calling because I'm, I'm a member of AA, and we have all of these churches and community centers and coffee shops shutting down and closing their doors.

And our meetings are the primary way that we get in contact with people who are struggling and need help, and particularly people who are stuck in their homes and potentially, you know, drinking out of control. and I'm part of a group that is trying to keep everybody informed, and it is just hour to hour getting calls from people saying their meetings were shut down and where can they go. And so it's been a huge new frontier for us. We're really trying to find ways to use technology to stay connected. And we just hope that it works and that new people find us.

Hi, guys. I'm super sad that I missed you. My name is Jocelyn. I live on an island off of Vancouver, Canada, and we are experiencing a lot of the same shortages here that the rest of North America has, namely toilet paper for some unknown reasons. We recently got some groceries,

and we're able to get one package of toilet paper in that grocery order pickup. And it's the same kind of toilet paper we usually get, And then I opened it and realized that it was so loosely wound that the roll almost came out. And then I looked at the other toilet paper rolls in the same package and thought they're all really loosely wound. Like when you look at the toilet paper roll, you can see daylight between the layers, which is not how I'm used to getting toilet paper. So it's entirely possible that this toilet paper is just a bad batch. No. But that's my husband.

No. But we live in a net producer of toilet paper. Our province has a lot of trees and the Scott Charmin paper factory is in the town I grew up in. It would have been produced this week in order to fulfill the shortage. You should fear at me. No, really. But in any case, I think it's a really interesting problem, and it would be interesting to find out whether this is a problem

other listeners are having just by looking at their recently purchased toilet paper if they're lucky enough to have found some. That's all I had. Thanks to you guys. I love your show, and would be... Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. The point is, the point is, our is, our the toilet paper companies shorting us on toilet paper because these roles were, yeah,

were absolutely produced after this virus happened. So are they, like, has anyone counted the number of sheets or how, yeah. Or how tightly they're wound? Like, is it possible that they just in an effort to meet the need quickly that they decided, okay, well, let's put a little less on each role, so people will have something to use? Which would be kind of aha shitty. But, you know, it's plausible.

So I'm curious. Thanks, guys. Bye. Hi there. It's Clarissa, a music teacher from Ottawa. Ottawa's kind of a weird place right now. So I thought I'd bring some little bit of music and joy into it. Long different to my energy string better than the promise of a bird.

Good one, nice swing. Better than a big booker. page pictures, even if it came to the year's subscription. Better than a ticket to a holly through the rink side. Better than the daughter of a falcon for a bride. Better than the cherries on a whipped cream Sunday. Better than a week that'll never have a Monday. That's your song for today?

After the break, happy phopa. Ready for a call whenever you all are. Okay. Hello? Hello? Nope. Did they hang up? we hang up on them. I think it's doing that thing where there's so many people calling that it starts to hang up

on people. No. Here we go. No. Sorry person from Toronto. Oh, we got something. We got something. We got a live one. Hello? No, we don't. I can see all the calls coming in. I think normally the system kind of works. Yeah. Do you want to try restarting the they'll do Hickey? There's no way to restart it. Shit. Okay, guys, I have a new idea. Okay. We have a limited time only number.

Okay. That I can say out loud. The phone ring! How does someone already have the number? Just answer it. Hello? Hello? Hello?

Hello? Hello? Who's this? How did you get this number? How did you get this number? Did I really get through? Yeah, you really got through. Oh, no, no, no.

You got through in between shutting off the old number and shutting in the new number. There was a brief window and you made it through. This is a miracle. Who are you? Where are you calling from? I'm in Japan right now. Where in Japan are you? In Tokyo, actually, right now.

What's happening there? It's weird. So basically there's not a lot of. reported cases, but everywhere that I see online says that they're not testing anybody, so we don't really know if there's, like, a lot of being hidden, or if it's just really, we got really lucky. So. Why aren't they testing people?

And the Olympics. Oh, it's because of the Olympics, I think. The Olympics are this year. And they don't want to cancel the Olympics, so they're trying to. They're still talking about, isn't that July? Is there any popular outcry of people being like, you guys need to take care of this? people aren't getting tested and this is killing people in other countries. Yeah, yesterday or like the day before yesterday on Twitter, they were trending to get the

Prime Minister Abbe to resign. So like resign Abe was trending. Yeah. Has there been a moment, it feels like in different countries, there's moments where it starts to get like this thing happens and then like a chunk of people take it seriously. And then another thing happens and like a bigger chunk of people take it seriously. What happened that has made you take it seriously? Honestly, just like, okay, so my mom called me yesterday.

Well, actually, my mom called me and I missed it, and then my brother called me, and then he messaged me. I was like, oh, my God, maybe it's actually really bad because I kind of got worried about thinking about her, worrying about me, you know? So I don't know what she's saying on the news and stuff. Where's your family? My mom's in America.

I'm American. How come you're over here there? I came here for school. And actually right now I was just visiting because of my friend's wedding. So I just ended up being here for a couple of months. My flight back is on the 14th of April. So I was thinking about moving it up. Is it making you more homesick?

Actually, yeah. This is really strange because I've never, ever been homesick before. But I do want to, like, get back home. So what, how come you think, what is it about this that makes you feel homesick? Well, okay, it's kind of, I don't want to get like too dark, but my dad actually passed away in last April. Oh, I'm sorry. So it's kind of like, you know, you start thinking about, I don't want my mom to be alone. I hope she's okay kind of thing like that.

Is this your first experience of like having to be kind of parental towards your mom? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Like, oh my God, when my dad passed away, like, I became my dad for a while. It was really weird. Like, my mom, she's the kind of person who, like, doesn't really show that she's having a hard time. Like, I never saw her cry once, but, like, I know that she was having a really hard time.

So, like, I was the one who was, like, stepping in and doing everything and, like, ordering whatever she needed. She wasn't going to sleep. I, like, forced her to go to bed, basically. I was like, I was cooking, every single meal I was cooking, and I just, like, stepped into that role and it was, like, extremely overwhelming. And part of me probably wanted to, like, get away from it as possible. Totally. Now I feel a little guilty about it.

I don't know. It's hard. It's hard. Like, you need to be there for people. And then you also need to take care of yourself so that you can be there for people. Yeah. That's exactly what she said. Unfortunately.

She was like, go. I want you to leave. You meet those do-lubes on your own. Get out of here. I'm sorry that you're, like, in a place that's far away from your people right now. Yeah, but it'll be okay. Well, thanks for calling us. Take care.

Bye. Bye. Are you okay? I'm just thinking about... I'm genuinely worried about tons of people dying. My grandmother, who is 92, was telling me yesterday, My grandmother lives in a retirement home in Nova, Michigan, just outside of Detroit. And she was saying she lives in this retirement community that's really wonderful.

And like, I'm so glad that she's there. But the other day, she was like, yeah, she's got a new boyfriend. His name's Arthur. My grandfather died a few years ago. And she's like, you know, the other day we were told to stay in our room and they shut down the kitchens and they're just bringing us food. But the other day, me and Arthur snuck out and went for a walk. And I'm like, Grandma, you're going to, you could die. Don't do that.

What did she say? Her response basically was just like, I'm 92. Like, I should be dead already. Like, I'm going to just do what I want. But that feels really hard. It's not, it's particularly selfish for me to want my mother or my grandmother to just like live in isolation for months on end because there was actually a really bad flu going around her, um, her retirement home this winter.

So they got off of quarantine from that flu. for after in like February and now they're back. And it's more extreme this time. Yeah. Damiano, what's going on with the calls? I think I can have one for you. I just one moment. Okay.

Hello? Hello. Hi, who's this? Hi, Alex and PJ. Jade Louisa. Hi. How are you doing? How are you dealing with the quarantine?

It's so weird. So London's like a little bit behind you guys in Paris, I think. What I read was that England, like, England until a few days ago was pursuing a totally different strategy for most countries regarding coronavirus and they like switched. Is that right? Yes. Yeah. The idea is that we're all going to get herd immunity. So herd immunity is the idea that everybody is going to be out and about together, especially sort of in.

the city in London and magically everybody is going to pass it over to each other and eventually we'll all have passed it around so much that it's just going to fade off and everybody will stop getting coronavirus. It's like here people keep talking about like flattening the curve and her to mean he's actually like raise the curve and then it'll be done faster. Right. Yes. But the reason you do that is because there are people who are really at risk, tons of people

and also the hospital capacity isn't very good. So they, like, just figured that out. It made no sense whatsoever. It's also just like if you're trying to sell people on the concept of a thing, herd immunity doesn't really do it. Right? Yeah. My grandmother was going to visit my great grandmother on Monday still,

and it was like, no, you're going to do it. Oh, my goodness. Did you try to convince her not to do it? Yes, but she's very stubborn, so I think that was a losing battle. Oh, that sounds so stressful. I'm sorry. You sound fairly chipper about the whole situation, though. Yeah, you seem pretty chill about it, all things considered.

Well, one, I've popped anti-anxiety meds like there can be all the day-to-day. And some people have coping techniques. I have medication. What was your argument when you talk to your, what was your grandmother's argument? She was saying that it was just cold and she sort of just had like a tickle in her throat. Oh, she was actively symptomatic. Like, yeah, like she had a sore. grows.

Yes, well, kind of. She has one of the symptoms, but I think that's one too many. Please stay in the house. Her argument, she was angry because, and I don't know if your government has done this,

but there was the idea that over 70s would maybe have to stay in the house for four months, like self-isolate for up to four months. So she read that, and I think it kind of fit of, rage decided that no government was going to tell her what to do. And so she needs to go outside and she needs to go and visit people. It's kind of hard to present any kind of rational argument to that kind of anger. What are the rules in place? Like what is the government saying over

there? So I haven't seen today's press briefing. But as of yesterday, there was a ban on mass gatherings, I think, above 500. And there was a suggestion that pubs and theaters and everywhere had to close, but it was not officially mandated. So the government didn't order everywhere to close. And what about you? What's your work situation? Today was actually my first work from home day.

What do you do? I work in publishing. Do you have recommendations for people for people? step to read if they're stuck inside? Yes. I can really recommend the 10,000 doors of January. What's that about? That is sort of a fantasy novel where the basis is this girl, January, is dropped off by her father and some old guy's house, and she finds this door when she's very young.

It's kind of like a magical door that leads to another city. And as the story goes on, you learn that these doors open up into other worlds. Oh, that's cool. Society that's trying to close the doors, etc., etc. Is it a doll? Very cool. No, it's actually adult fiction. So it's like adult narnia, sort of.

Yeah. Oh, dude, I could go for that right now. Would recommend. Okay. All right. Well, thank you. Take care of yourself. Bye, bye. Hi, you've reached the reply-all call-in line. We're either on the other line and we've stopped taking calls for the day. But feel free to leave a message or try calling back.

Just be aware that if you do leave a voicemail, we might use it in the podcast. All right, thank you. Happy polva. So our quarantine thing we've been doing is we made a fake holiday with the express reason of pissing off our, well, our mom, Ellen. And we call this Popa. It stands for the festival of playful activities. And the way that it works is we basically just wear a hat and say happy Copa until Ellen gets really pissed off.

So it's actually been working really well. Basically, we can kind of make up any rules, but any rule that Ellen makes up, it doesn't work. Like, that's not allowed. So far, we've had four people at a time in on the third. and... Are you just trying to perpetuate the whole thing? So we encourage everyone to celebrate phopa with us.

Also, just so you know, the way to spell phopa is F-O-W-E-LOW, PA. Happy Fobha! Happy Foppa! I see as a result of... I'm a foster parent, and I'm a older kid who I've had some things two months old, and he was born with medical complications and in the hospital and he eats through a G-tube

was like a hole in his stomach and we've been getting through the process and very unsympathetic judge was just letting this drag out and out and out the biological parents weren't doing anything to prove that they could care for this complex kid and we finally get a date May 5th

that there's a trial to terminate there, and there he is. That dates still good, and this is just going to drag on, and it just gives the parents more, the biological parents, because we're his parents. We've had him since he was two months old, and now I was confident, you know, like, and now this dates, and it gives them a chance to, it gives them more time to pretend that they're capable,

and meanwhile, this boy understands more and loves us more and more, And anyway, it's just, you know, you think a virus is going to keep people inside and you understand that. But then you think that it might take your kid away from you and give him to an unsafe household. And it's just heartbreaking. And we're fortunate. We're doing okay. I mean, I stay at home with him anyway. So it really hasn't changed that much in my life.

just know more doctors that aren't absolutely necessary either and my partner is all fine that's all I got my name is Mark calling from well off the border of Argentina and Uruguay expedition ship kind of waiting for news from the cruise company to figure out where I'm going to to disembark and how hell to get home. We were intended to push the cruise right actually tomorrow.

We had to cut the trip early by a day, but we all kind of mentally prepared to be gone this long and most of us have flights leaving tomorrow, but we're in this situation where Argentina and Uruguay seemed to announce new restrictions every

at anchor, maybe 50 miles away. We can see the ports on both sides of the ship, but we're unable to get in. So we've been denied entry into Uruguay and denied entry into Buenos Aires. Nobody on board is sick. We take temperatures every 12 hours just in case that we've been effectively quarantined together for 30 days. So we're a group of 68 passengers who have effectively been in quarantine.

But I don't know. we might have to stay here and continue to quarantine for a while. I don't know. Just kind of floating. So that's our show for this week. Before we go, an unusual amount of housekeeping stuff to take care of. So all the calls you heard, we did something unusual when we recorded them, which is that we broadcast them live.

We really enjoyed it. We're going to keep trying to do weird experiments like this, and you can keep updated with all that stuff at replyall.online. Also, we are currently looking for unobtainiums. Those are recordings we've asked for in the past from you of spaces you are in where you feel isolated, either physically or emotionally. I think that describes pretty much the whole world right now. If you want to record one of those for us, just take out your phone, record a voice memo, say where you are, describe what's going on, and then record, if you can, 30 seconds of the place. email it to us at Reply All at Gimlet Media.com.

In the subject line, say Unobtainium and a short description of where you're at. Finally, if you're looking for just factual information about coronavirus right now, we're going to be talking to experts, asking questions both about the disease and the effects on the economy. If you've got questions you want answered, go to Replyall.com. There will be a place where you can ask them. We'll try to get answers for you. Reply All is hosted by PJ Vote and me, Alex Goldman. The show is produced by Shrethi Pinnaminani, Fia Benin, Damiano Marquetti, Anna Foley, Jessica Young, and Emmanuel Jochi.

Our executive producer is Tim Howard. We're mixed by Rick Kwan. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris. Our intern is Lisa Wang. Special thanks this week to Zach Schmidt and to everyone who called in. Our theme song is by the Mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder. Additional music this week from Mariana Romano and Luke Williams. Matt Lieber is that day several weeks from now when you can hug your friends again.

Thanks for listening. We'll see you very soon.