Gimli, MB – As workplaces across the globe are switching to a work from home model amid the Covid-19 pandemic, 26 year old administrative coordinator, Madeline Wilson was spotted scrambling to assemble a single presentable corner in her decrepit apartment for a work skype call.
“I just don’t want them to see the squalor I live in,” said Wilson as she arranged three potted plants behind her desk chair to cover exposed the wiring. “This unit has several issues that could lead to it being condemned by the city, but with a little staging, I can convince my coworkers I am living like a functional adult.”
Witnesses report Wilson has spent the past two hours manically trying to gussy up the dilapidated unit to create the perfect 3×4 foot diorama for her webcam, going so far as to paint the entire back wall black to cover up a spot of black mould. Wilson had also ordered a generic Ikea print to cover up an embarrassing old True Blood poster and scrambled to find enough books to fill the top two rows of a bookshelf.
“She’s not even wearing pants,” disclosed roommate Jeremy Hosta. “She’s just wearing a dickie. Everything out of frame is utter chaos.”
When pressed on the location of the skype call, in the high traffic area of the living room she shares with her five roommates, Wilson was quick to defend her reasoning. “My bedroom wasn’t an option, obviously. I don’t want them to know I sleep. Plus It is just trashed. I mean absolutely packed to the brim with dirty laundry and old water glasses. It looks like the lair of a sewer dweller.”
Sources have also claimed the bathroom was briefly considered as the toilet was the only seat in the house not covered by a mountain of winter coats but Wilson ultimately decided the living room had the most potential, as the dim lighting beautifully concealed most of the crumbling drywall that lines the apartment.
“I’ve lost track of what the call is even about,” said Wilson. “Data analytics? Sales projections? Fuck if I know. What matters is that I give my coworkers the illusion of looking put together.” Wilson then delivered what appeared to be fatal stomps on several cockroaches.
At presstime, just as the call started one of Wilson’s roommates walked into frame to eat a big heaping bowl of pasta in their underwear.
