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Wanted: Area columnist seeks happiness hacks

My Sentiments Exactly

I’m a happy person.

Really. Ask around.

I’m a smiler. A hugger. A well-wisher.

I’m the say-“I-love-you”-before-hanging-up-with-fam girl. Every. Single. Time.

I’m also a world-class empathizer. I’m seriously all about the other humans, especially the ones in my particular orbit, you dig? #MyTribe

I pray for them. I brag on them. I worry about them. Like, a LOT.

Are they safe? Are they happy? Are they eating enough? Are they flossing after every meal?

Are they Clorox-wiping their surroundings constantly?

It’s exhausting sometimes, but it’s part of my PK-ness, for better or “worst,” as my Pop used to say. He always tweaked popular phrases to make them his own. Guess that was part of his FM-ness. Man, how I miss him. #LoveYouDad #StillGrieving

Ahem.

Um, something else that defines yours very kookily truly? Being a homebody. Under pre-pandemic circumstances (remember those?), anyway, I’m down for snuggling up with my favorite heavy blanket in front of the fireplace, watching a classic movie.

Or, when Kyle Kimerer’s in the house, hiding beneath it because he’s found some really terrifying new Netflix series with which to torture his aged Ma. #PerfectNight

Sadly, however, staying at home more often than not is shadowing my sunny sheen. That is to say, I’m getting a little COVID Crabby, capisce?

TBH, I could be one maddening episode of “Everybody Loves Raymond” away from becoming snide, cynical and maybe even, like, just this side of bitter, yo.

I’m sorry, Ray Romano. You could very well be lovely IRL. However, that doesn’t stop me from wanting to throat-punch your TV alter ego. Why, for the love of all that is good and holy, would Debra ever have put up with a whiny, snively, self-absorbed, baby like Ray?

Oh, right, hit TV show, big bucks, no whammies. Still…

Not only do I wish Ray’s gigantic brother, Robert, would have pulverized him into oblivion every time their mother Marie favored Ray (and why?) but also, I wish Pioneers Girl troop leader Peggy would have drawn blood when she DID beat him up a la the cookie sale location debacle.

See? Lockdown’s makin’ me loopy. Silly things such as that wouldn’t have even registered a solitary radar blip before — but now they are now completely blipping me off.

Hmpf.

For instance, was our forced air heating / cooling system always this freaking loud? How could I have never noticed that it is the decibel level of a 747 prepping for takeoff? Dang!

Then there’s the washing machine. Great carboli! The stupid spin cycle takes like, 4 1/2 weeks to complete — and alas, when it finally does, it isn’t.

Why am I having to wring out clothes by hand that supposedly just twirled, swirled and whirled longer than it takes a Happy Meal toy to decompose in a landfill? #PleaseRecycle

Grrr.

Luckily there has been at least one bright spot during all this cooped-up-ment: “The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City.”

Thank you, Bravo.

Listen, nothing can lift me out of the doldrums like finding out the latest on my new fave wives. Sure, Jen Shah’s tantrums are the stuff of horror films and Mary M. Cosby’s hitched to her late Grandma’s hubby. No judgment.

But Meredith Marks is my homegirl and, other than my beloved cousins living there, nothing could inspire me more to move to a state where lots of snow and lots of wives are common, ‘kay?

• Kimerer is a columnist whose creaking floors are Poe-sitively making her mad. Contact her with pandemic relief hacks at www.patriciakimerer.com.

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