The One Franklin Square Building, home of The Washington Post, in downtown Washington, Friday, Feb. 8, 2019.

Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP Photo

The Washington Post Local section is on the receiving end of a truly striking Twitter ratio after publishing a column on Sunday suggesting that Washingtonians “escape lockdown” by taking a pretend vacation in their spare bedrooms.

The Post Local Twitter account posted the story by columnist John Kelly on Sunday around 4:30 p.m. with this headline: “The key to escaping lockdown? Sleep in your guest room and pretend it’s a trip.” By Monday, the tweet had some 380 likes, 88 retweets, and more than 1,200 replies. (For those of you who aren’t glued to the internet for 18 hours a day: to get “ratioed” on Twitter is to get far more replies than likes, which is often a signal that your post has been … badly received.)

A representative response: “GUEST ROOM? What are we too poor to have a POOL HOUSE?”

Kelly, who generally writes about local history, uses his latest column to describe his and his wife’s growing cabin fever as they worked indoors and limited social interaction for more than a month, given the coronavirus outbreak in the D.C. area. Their solution was to make a kind of vacation out of a time that Kelly painted as otherwise fearful and depressing:

We desperately needed to break up the depressing monotony. So we opted for a change of scenery and a change of mind-set. We packed our clothes and phone chargers and carried them into the bedroom next to ours: the guest bedroom.

Not an Airbnb, an Ourbnb.

“This is nice,” My Lovely Wife said as we inspected the room. It was comfortable, but antiseptic, the way guest rooms in the homes of suburban empty-nesters tend to be.

“I wonder if they have a fitness center,” I said, knowing full well there was a treadmill in the basement.

Of course, as many Twitter commenters pointed out, many Washingtonians aren’t quarantining or social distancing in a home with this kind of extra space. Several people accused Kelly’s column of being tone deaf, particularly during a time when so many people are facing unemployment, losing loved ones, becoming ill themselves, or even just quarantining in small apartments with several family members.

Some other choice replies:

https://twitter.com/PKellyMLB/status/1254599564553748481

https://twitter.com/DrunkenCripple/status/1254609115717857282

In an email, Kelly tells DCist that people should read the column itself.

“I don’t have any comment, beyond suggesting that people read the column, as opposed to tweets about the column,” Kelly wrote. “And also that every time they read the words ‘guest room’ they substitute ‘girls’ old room.'”

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