To those of you who haven’t gone into full “shelter in place” yet, 20 tips from your friend on the other side:

1. Your local pharmacy will feel like Saks on Fifth Avenue before too long. Going in here is a treat. Don some gloves, grab a trolley and saunter those aisles as slowly as you please. Bypass the toilet paper aisle, we both know it will be futile.

2. Your local grocery store will feel like Harrods Food Hall. Spotting a jar of pasta sauce and a packet of penne will feel like you’ve found a truffle under an oak tree. Savor the moment.

3. Don’t buy tins of tuna. Not even the dog will eat it.

4. Buy pencils. Lots of them. Preferably pre-sharpened. They don’t make sharpeners like they used to.

5. Open a Zoom account. Stat.

6. Get an Ipad stand so you don’t have to use family heirlooms to keep the Ipads in place during class.

7. Get your hair colored immediately.

8. Buy root spray. If you were too late for #7.

9. Get your nails done.

10. Buy nail clippers and a nail file. Learn how to use them.

11. Get your eyebrows waxed. And other parts if you need to.

12. Buy razors. See above.

13. Realize that by Day 7 things are going to start to fall apart.

14. Set up Zoom cocktail hours with your buddies. See above.

15. Get 30 minutes of fresh air a day. From a distance.

16. Get your neighbors email addresses and phone numbers and don’t be afraid to use them.

17. Clear out your freezer of last year’s “I’m sure I’ll eat that one day” leftovers and fill it with pizzas, frozen fruit and veges and bread. ALL the bread.

18. Buy ice cube trays.

19. Wash your hands every time you say to yourself “when will this end?”

20. Take comfort that the whole world is in this together and we will all triumph together. And then we will hug.