In so many ways, my strange, newfound connection with Le Petit Caporal has brought such comfort and peace at this difficult time. In so many ways, we resonate, he and I. He died on May 5; I was born on May 6. (I mean, not right away, but 199 years later.) He was “one of the most celebrated personages in the history of the West.” I am one of the most celebrated personages in the history of our house, especially when I drop frequent reminders that my birthday is, in fact, on May 6, which one cannot help but notice is fast approaching. He was feared by many. I have annoyed, okay, just a few, but really annoyed those few a great, great deal—big heaping buttery handfuls of annoyance—especially in the past 44 days. He was very possibly poisoned. Do not tell me that poison has not crossed the minds of those I have annoyed. Probably the only thing keeping me safe is the fact that 1) I am the only person in the house who can find anything at all ever, and I mean anything from a stick of freakin’ butter to a lost iPhone, making it impossible for them to locate dangerous substances without my assistance, and 2) every order placed in our Amazon cart lands with a resounding THUNK in my email, making it also impossible for them to order dangerous substances without my assistance.

But I’m watching them. Oh yes, I’m watching.

Yet in spite of these many connections with the Corsican, I was unable to take any comfort in them yesterday. It was impossible to imagine the great Emperor himself crouching down in a duck-walk to avoid being visible on his spouse’s Zoom video conference taking place in the very room where he—I mean I—keep my clothes. It wouldn’t have been the first time someone appeared unannounced in one of Husband’s Zoom meetings, but it would have been the first time someone appeared while wearing leopard-spotted lingerie bought for her by her sister at Victoria’s Secret in a happier, less quarantined-with-the-children sort of time. While this particular leopard-spotted lingerie happened to be a set of long-sleeved flannel jammies and not something slinky with a plunging décolletage (or, as the French would say, décolletage), it was, I felt, too risky to simply walk casually in and out of the meeting, leopard spots bearing the risqué connotations that they do. These are men of science. They carry the heavy burden of inertial confinement fusion. It’s too much to ask them to also carry the burden of my leopard-spotted flannel-jammied image burned forever in their fevered brains. I am married, hence unattainable. Not to duck walk would have been cruel, or “cruelle,” which I am not.

I am, however, nearly out of coffee beans.