(Image: Tom Red/Private Media)

Like Christmas or explosive diarrhoea, normal is coming — ready or not. But after the past 18 months, who the hell even knows what normal is any more? From personal grooming to political gimmicks, there’ll be a lot of reacclimatising. Crikey satirist Tom Red reads the tea leaves.

Groom for improvement When lockdowns began, the slide from “dress-to-impress” to “impressed-you’re-dressed” was swift and comprehensive. Coming back from that sartorial abyss will be a struggle of epic proportions. Some wags have suggested using vaccination rates as a fashion guide. If your state is still below 70%, it’s fine to keep wearing activewear at home and in public. At 80%, try to introduce “other clothes” when you’re out and about. And when December 1 finally hits, activewear can only be worn when you’re being active.

The chitchataphobia challenge COVID-19 was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to finally unclutter our work-related social lives. Like bears in hibernation, we perfected the art of never seeing anyone from the office. So how will we feel when we emerge from caves, eyes squinting at the prospect of work drinks, farewells, birthday lunches and trivia nights? Don’t worry, you are not alone. Chitchataphobia — morbid fear of small talk during work-related functions — is a real and potentially debilitating condition. Psychologists warn that more needs to be done to help people identify the signs, particularly in the run-up to Christmas.

When day-drinking calls it a night Given our rum-stained history, the imposition of Dan Murphy’s Law during lockdown was never going to be opposed by most Australians. It was tacitly agreed that if we are all stuck at home, all day, pretending to home-school, we will deserve a liquid reward. For a while, 5pm became the new 6.30pm. Then 4pm did. And so on, until it became best for all concerned to not ask the time. The only thing your colleagues saw over Zoom was you enjoying a cuppa in your special cup. They had no idea what made it special. Back in the office, this all changes.

Hard to say Another victim of the pandemic has been the art of casual conversation. Back in the day, when a neighbour or acquaintance asked “What have you been up to?” it felt harmless, friendly, reassuring. Nowadays it can feel like Vlad the Impaler rushing at you with a red-hot poker. “What do you want me to say? I have absolutely no idea how I am! Do I interrogate you like this?” Hopefully this will change once we start doing something more than watching Netflix, quaffing cheeky pinots and deciding if it’s really worth changing from day daks into night daks. Spoiler: it isn’t.

Plagued by politics COVID has been the only game in town since early 2020, and has clearly benefited incumbents. But now the clouds are lifting, what happens next? History suggests the government will claim all the glory for allegedly steering the nation through perilous times. It’ll also paper over inconvenient truths such as screwing up the vaccine supply, botching quarantine and letting Greg Hunt out in public. The opposition, conversely, will argue that being pragmatic, supportive and invisible throughout the crisis was the decent thing to do. It’ll also be hoping voters don’t reward that decency with three more years of invisibility because frankly they were really good at it.

Unfinished business COVID sucked all of the oxygen out of the media room. Apart from the occasional pork-barrelling scandal, footballers and the ubiquitous “white powder”, and billionaires playing Star Trek, the news cycle has been an unrelenting stream of infection rates, border closures, announcements, reannouncements and the odd horse-punching rioter. All that may change soon, though. Will we emerge from this ordeal stronger and wiser? Will we be ready to tackle unfinished business such as climate change, systemic corruption, intergenerational poverty, toxic masculinity and people using leaf blowers? Hard to say. However, the fact that supposedly educated people are fighting for the right to swallow horse-worming medication, and our government’s plan for post-COVID recovery is “frack more gas”, the odds aren’t looking great.