 Some people used to deep throat the faucet. Just straight up suckle it. What will never be the same again, once the pandemic is over? Food delivery just being dropped off on your doorstep. Remember when you had to go outside and make eye contact like some kind of person? No more, my friends. Just leave it outside and I'll get it when I'm ready. No more scrambling to find pants when you're half-baked and hungry. I'm a delivery driver myself, and I can tell you, I appreciate it just as much on my end. I don't got a deal with gross people or weird stuff, just drop that shit off and run. Like a FedEx driver before Covid. Standing next to someone after they sneeze. So hygiene and sanitation. Today, I watched some lady pulled down her mask, sneeze with her mouth fully open, spit flying everywhere on the product. When the manager called her out on it, she got angry and started ranting. Left after lunch. I donated blood two months ago and the nurse was about to pull my needle out after another guy, without changing gloves. I could see blood on her fingertip from 10 feet away. First time I truly lost my shit in a decade. Health care workers going to work without a mask on. Definitely took for granted seeing my coworkers smiling faces during my long shifts. I started my job at a hospital in May, and it's funny to see my coworkers take their masks off briefly, because I've worked with them for six months and didn't know what their face looked like. I've never noticed how pretty some of my coworkers eyes are before this. Green eyes and crooked teeth gang. I've gone up like three points on the one to 10 scale. At least until the mask comes off. And I can defer my nose job another few years. Win-win. Time spent with my kids. Pre-pandemic, I would leave the house five days a week at 6.15am to commute to the office, usually before anyone else in my house is awake. And I'd get home most evenings just in time to put them to bed. I'll never go back to that. The past eight months I've actually seen my boys grow up in front of my eyes and I get lots of quality time with them every day, even with work from home. I know now, what I was missing. Only positive to come from this whole mess. Made me take a step back and rethink my life. You'll never look back in years to come and think, I should have spent more time at my desk. Blowing out the candles on your birthday cake. I never thought about it, but it is a rather disgusting tradition. For my wife's birthday, we cut the cake, gave her a piece with a candle, and that's one that she blew out. I will not take hugs for granted. My mom passed away unexpectedly in October. Because of my asthma, my mom took extra precautions around me, and hugs were completely off the table. The last two times I saw her, I tried to hug her goodbye when I was leaving, and she said no. Of course I respected that, and we did an air hug. When I found out she died, the first thing that went through my head, was the fact that I had not hugged her since January, and I never will again. There's millions of others in my shoes, and it's fucking heartbreaking. My heart goes out to all of you, who lost a loved one and are grieving, as well. If you can't hug someone you love right now, let them know you love them in some way. It's so important, and something we all take for granted too frequently. The phrase, avoid it like the plague. Turns out, people don't do that. I remember seeing a funny quote, either here on Reddit or on Twitter, that went something like, if the next zombie movie, doesn't have 40% of the people running towards the zombies to get infected on purpose, then it's not believable. Most of the mom and pop stores in my town are gone forever. Shopping will continue to be mostly online, and malls will likely die out faster than they were already going to. Some of these stores I grew up with, the Nickel Arcade, the tiny French bakery my aunt took us to when we got good grades, the only ramen shop open after 10pm, my favorite donut shop, the fancy British tea shop I never had a good date in, but many London fogs that were utterly perfect, the only dim some place, the handmade mochi and tea shop, the only cigar shop in town to get fancy cigars. I lament the death of all these tiny businesses I took for granted. I always thought they'd be around. Now my community is left with just brand named box stores, no more originality and flavor. Just closed skyrise buildings surrounded by a garishly lit denny's, Olive Garden, and Target. Working in an office, particularly in Japan. I live in Japan. Going to the office and spending all day here is a deep cultural tradition. Asking your manager at a traditional Japanese company, to work from home regularly is on par with asking them, hey, I just realized I'm dragonkin, can you please work with the cafeteria to put live cats on the menu? You would get the same reaction. Even in cases of personal illness or family emergency. So many companies here, even in the early COVID days, flat out publicly said, ha, no, we will never be doing that, work from home thing, sorry. That's laughably naive. Then, the country issued a declaration of national urgency, not an actual emergency, as that would entitle the government to be actually accountable, to the livelihoods of the people, just a very strong arm public stance and shaming businesses into following suit. Literally those same companies, issuing the statements above, were scrambling the next week to get their staff safely working from home, online, using remote meeting tools, etc. So, that was a big game changer. Still, everyone was thinking, once the urgency order is lifted, we'll all be going back to work as normal. Well, the urgency order lasted a few months. And those traditional Japanese businesses saw what happened to their bottom lines, when they no longer had to pay for electricity, heating AC, cleaning, office equipment and maintenance, subsidized travel expenses to slash from work, soft items like coffee and snacks, etc. And so many of them now are singing the praises of a, sensible work from home policy, and planning for even long-term work from home options. Now the society is changing very rapidly to accommodate working from home. More people recently, are less looking at buying their first house slash apartment and crowded Tokyo outskirts slash close suburbs, and looking more to buying one to two hours away in the boonies, where land is actually affordable and living is better. It's watching a sociological essay slash study unfold, live, in slow motion. My waistline. I had finally started working out five days a week, eating healthy, going to bed on time, etc. I kept that up for about three months and one month into COVID, before losing the mental strength. I gained pretty much all that weight back, and I'm pretty bummed. On the bright side, my younger brother has finally gotten his shit together, and looks better than he is in years. My bank balance. In the words of the great tiger king himself, I'm never gonna financially recover from this. It's annoying how seemingly quickly, my life went from talking about where we wanted to buy a house, to discussing the possibility of moving back in with my parents for a while. Drinking fountains. Some people used to deep throat the faucet. Just straight up suckle it. Well, no more. My definition of personal space. I've always felt uncomfortable, when customers get too close to me at work. Now I just feel validated, when I keep trying to step away from them. As a nursing assistant, I will be forever hesitant to get near someone without my shield and mask. Particularly the elderly who like to cough directly at you without mask. Today, I was in my building going up to my floor, and told an older man he could share the elevator if he wanted. I noticed he clicked 43 and asked if he was going to vote, our building is a precinct. He said he was and that he was supposed to be an election judge, but had flu symptoms for 36 hours. Then says, maybe I shouldn't have shared this elevator with you. Like, why dude? Thank you for watching Royal AI. Be sure to subscribe and hit the notification bell to receive future episodes. Share your experience in the comments, or tell us what you think of these stories.