2020 was designed for the grump. Stock market crash. Election year. Damn pandemic - better known as the "damndemic."Sports suspended. Bars closed (boy that hurt). Take out or delivery only. Told to stay inside and created phrases like "social distancing," "new normal," "big box store," "essential businesses," "flattening the curve," "lockdown,".... you get the idea. Just retyping those words or phrases makes me grumpy. Anyway, to a grump who never misses an opportunity to gripe or appear skeptical, 2020 has been a rich treasure of opportunities, like walking into a pirate's long lost cave and have it glowing in gold and light piercing the jewels that are strewn about. The riches on display for the grump to behold may have actually been overwhelming, but we endeavor to persevere.
Navigating the "facts" of CV 19 and the "truth" is like being tossed into a vat of molasses and asked to swim and find the five gold coins at the bottom. There is the science crowd who update us daily (and their followers who pretend to be science-oriented but are really no more or less smart than you or me). As with science, facts change as understanding changes almost daily. There is the medical crowd. These folks are tasked with treating us amid uncertainty from the science crowd, so they are there to navigate cautiously for two reasons, money and costs. There is the political crowd, who in truth, influence a majority of us, even those who are on social media playing dress up (today, I'm playing a doctor or scientist). The political crowd and their minions, those who make money off politics, are driven by one thing: covering their asses. Then there are the rest of us who struggle to decipher in an intelligible way all of this non-sense dispensed in a multitude of media. Consequently, what we have is a mess of not one person's making, but rather the collective we in the US and world.
It was in that mix, that I had symptoms of something, and given the fear that drives those on the lowest level of Maslow ("Damn it, wear a mask, socially distance or we will all die!!!!"), I found myself sick with something. So, I went to the doctor. There began the fiasco.
The Test - I dragged my feet for about five days with symptoms of something. Yet, in this day and age of "new normal," (as an aside, is it me, or are the people responsible for that phrase the same people who used to argue against "normal" by asking questions like, 'I mean, what IS normal anyway?') I got to thinking about it and decided it best to go to the doctor to prove I had allergies or a sinus infection, not CV19. I had been removed from general circulation for a few days on my own accord anyway fearing that I might share whatever I had. We once did that on our own, you know, before the "new normal," in which these righteous do-gooders that come in all shapes, sizes and colors started reminding us of our social responsibilities.
So, I looked up places that tested for CV19 (goodness, the number went from one on every corner to a few), and I found one I was comfortable with. I set the appointment online (dinosaurs know how to do that too), and during the online session, I answered a series of questions that were centered on CV 19. "Come in contact with? Been exposed to?" Those kinds of things. As my time grew close, I got in the car and went to the clinic. Upon entry, I answered the same set of questions, and the lady shot my temperature. "Normal!" she said and directed me to the next station. That would be the pay station where they touched my ID, my insurance card, and my credit card. They then turned the little receiver where the card is swiped to me to enter my pin. "12 touch points in that transaction. I'd say we are screwed if this is as deadly as the plague down the road," I said to myself. We chat momentarily and then I go to the waiting area. They then call me back.
Nurse comes in wearing street clothes. Asks the routine questions. Doctor comes in wearing street clothes. Does the normal exam. Doctor tests me for strep. It's negative. Then the hammer: I'm going to test you for COVID, he pronounces. Thunder. The earth splits. A crowd of paid mourners is in the lobby wailing. The nurse comes back in dressed in yellow paper coveralls with a face-shield on putting red trash bags for biohazard out. The doctor comes in dressed the same. I say, "Boy, if this is COVID, I'd say you're a day late with those outfits and the bio-hazard stuff." The doctor laughs. Administers the test touching the back of my brain with the swab entering through my nostril.
He smiles and says, "We will let you know in three days. Until then, quarantine." That was it. No "where have you been? Start calling people. Here is a list of do's and don'ts." Nothing. Nada. Just go home and quarantine and wait three days.
As was noted earlier, this is a rich harvest for a grump. Up next: The Results, or Is It Me or Is the World Going Insane? Stay tuned later.
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