It’s looking like we’re going to be spending a good chunk of time indoors for the foreseeable future. This means that you’re probably going to be stuck close to other people in your household for quite some time, and based on experience, you’re going to hit some rough patches.

However, it could be worse, and while sequestering myself away from society, I got to thinking about what it’d be like to be cooped up with some of the most notable figures in the history of the world because that’s where having way too much time to think about things led me.

Sure, you might have shitty roommates or a significant other with irritating quirks you weren’t totally aware of until you were recently confined to close quarters with them but here are a few people of note who would make quarantine especially miserable if you were sharing the same space with them.

Edgar Allen Poe

He’s one of America’s greatest writers but the negative vibes he would give off just wouldn’t be appreciated.

In every picture I’ve ever seen of Edgar Allen Poe, he looks like he’s just moping around and waiting for someone to ask him what’s wrong. However, when they eventually do, he gives a real answer instead of just lying about how everything is fine as the rest of us do.

It may seem like it’d be cool to hear some of the stuff he’s working on but he strikes me as someone who wouldn’t know how to read the room and determine when is an appropriate time to read certain material.

He’d be like, “Hey can I read you something I wrote?” and you’d say, “Sure what is it?”

“It’s called The Masque of the Red Death. It’s about people who are hiding inside to escape a plague.”

“Yeah, I’m going to have to ask you to skip that one for the time being. Got anything where people think there’s a murderer on the loose but it turns out that an orangutan did it?”

“I do, actually.”

“Cool. Let’s read that one instead.”

In times like this, you need someone that’s going to be bringing the positivity and Edgar Allen Poe doesn’t strike me as “Mr. Brightside.”

John Wayne Gacy

Even if you remove the very obvious “he’s a serial killer” factor from this equation, being stuck with John Wayne Gacy during a pandemic would be awful—mostly because of his side gig: a party clown.

No one actually likes clowns. Fortunately, they’re pretty easy to avoid most of the time, but if you’re quarantined with one, you’re completely screwed.

It would be so irritating to be sitting there trying to eat breakfast while Gacy’s alter ego “Pogo The Clown” wanders into the kitchen, pours himself a glass of orange juice, and then shakes your hand with one of those shock buzzers.

While you’re trying to watch TV, he’d just sit in a chair and start twisting balloons and making that horrible squeaking noise that goes along with it. Then he’d throw you the finished product and you’d have to act like you thought it was cool because he’s John Wayne Gacy and the lock on your bedroom door is busted.

The thing is, you can only pretend to be impressed by balloon poodles for so long before you descend into madness and eventually you’ll snap after he sprays you in the face with seltzer from the flower on his lapel for the umpteenth-time.

Unfortunately, when that happens, he’ll have the upper hand because he’s a serial killer.

Thomas Edison

It may seem at first that the guy who invented the lightbulb would be the perfect quarantine partner but his reputation for being an unapologetic ass makes me think otherwise.

You could only listen to him bitch about Nikola Tesla for so long before you started concocting an exit strategy in the form of an experiment that involves a toaster and a bathtub.

Every time you’d turn on a light or listen to some Scott Joplin wax cylinders on your phonograph, he’d walk past the room and say, “Pretty great inventions, huh?”

You’d reply “They’re alright, I guess” and the mere notion of his inventions being just “alright” would enrage Edison, who would threaten to electrocute you just like he did to Topsy the Elephant (which is an actual thing he did. Edison was kind of a real scumbag).

Maybe if things got really bad and you found yourself in quarantine for an extended amount of time, Edison could invent some useful stuff but he’d probably keep it all for himself (and if you happened to come up with anything on your own, he’d just take credit for it).

Benjamin Franklin

Ben Franklin is one of the greatest Americans of all time but his obsession with productivity would make him frustrating to be around at a time like this.

He’d wake you up at five in the morning for no reason whatsoever.

“Seriously, Ben?” you’d ask, still fighting your way out of a groggy stupor.

“Yes, indeed. The early bird catches the worm,” he’d say, quoting himself (which is a douchebag move).

“But everything’s closed; nothing is happening.”

“Not with an attitude like that it’s not,” Franklin would reply. “Let’s go fly kites or something.”

“How about you just go.”

“Okay. Can I borrow your kite?”

“Sure, whatever,” you’d respond before returning to the warm embrace of sleep.

Then you’d wake up and discover your kite had been destroyed by a lightning strike and Ben defeated the entire purpose of quarantine by bringing back two girls he met in the park who couldn’t resist his legendary charm. They won’t sleep at all that night, and thanks to the noises coming from his bedroom, neither will you.

Ludwig van Beethoven

At first, being quarantined with one of the greatest musical composers in the history of the world seems like it’d be pretty cool.

All you have to do is make sure that you got a piano before the shelter-in-place orders started rolling in and let Beethoven park his 18th-century German ass on the bench to hammer out some tunes.

It’d be cool for a while but he’d be playing all hours of the day and night. You’d ask him to keep it down, but he’d use the fact that he was going deaf to his advantage and ignore you.

Then his temper would flare up. He’d want you to check out this new concerto and you tell him it’s cool but that the last note should be an F-flat, not F-natural. Beethoven would get mad and throw hot candle wax on you. You’d be mad because that’s both uncalled for and because there was no reason for him to have candles in the first place; you have lightbulbs in your modern house (thanks, Thomas Edison).

Then while you’re trying to dress your wounds, Beethoven would go back to playing nothing but “duh-duh-duh-duuuuuh” over and over for hours on end.