‘Rona? Oh, that b***h!

So we’re about 11 months into a practical shutdown of everything in the world.

I have been soooo careful over this time to not come down with the C-virus (Shoutout to Camelot331 from YouTube for stealing his term). I’ve done curbside pickup for 95% of my grocery needs, I get the majority of my meals via a delivery service, I wear my mask, wash my hands, carry name brand hand sanitizer whenever I do need to leave my home.

So, on a Wednesday in the middle of January, after finishing my work for the day, I was feeling tired. I went to my bedroom and laid out for a bit. After a few hours, in full clothing, under my Slanket (‘memba them?), I started getting really bad chills. I took my temperature and came back with a reading of 103.2. I took two more readings, just to make sure I wasn’t crazy, and they all came back within .1 or .2 of the original reading.

Now, at this point, I knew something was not right with me. However, I have a history of getting sick in January or February, even though I do get my flu shot every year. I take some aspirin, make some dinner, and go to bed.

I wake up the next morning, temp is down to 101.9. I’m not feeling too bad other than the fever, so I sign in to work and limp through the day. Continue taking aspirin, drinking lots of fluids. Get off of work, make dinner, go to bed.

Friday morning, temp is down to 101.1, didn’t feel I slept well. I call off of work, spend the day in bed, napping, playing Animal Crossing here and there. That evening, I made dinner and part of that included some garlic bread. When I make the garlic bread, you can smell it. I could not! Despite being feverish, I’ve not had any nasal or head congestion, I was breathing fine. I go to eat and I couldn’t taste anything, “oh s**t!”.

Now at this point, I’m getting concerned. I’m panic searching places to get tested, looking for places I can go to. Nothing on the weekend, and since it was the weekend before MLK day, nothing was available until Tuesday.

So I schedule tests on Tuesday for myself and my, to borrow a phrase from “Jay” of “Jay and Silent Bob” fame, hetero life mate. Two days later, results come in, we’re both positive. The Mrs., who has not exhibited any symptoms, now has to take a two week sabbatical from work.

Now, we have no clue how we caught it. There are three possibilities:

1) (The Least Likely scenario) I came into contact with it from someone who had it on one of my trips to the grocery store.

2) (The more plausible scenario) My other half came into contact with it at work and brought it home.

For the record, “Mrs. Shizz” is classified by our state as an “essential worker”, she works for a regional convenience store chain and makes food for others to consume. It is important to note, at no point has any of her coworkers been diagnosed as having it, or has anyone been contact traced back to that store who has had it.

3) (The highly likely scenario) We got it from the downstairs neighbor.

We live in basically a duplex. The house has two units. The first floor is one unit, and the second floor is the other, we are on the second floor (and no, my name is not Luka — If you don’t get that reference, we can’t be friends). We do not socialize with the person who lives below us AT ALL.

Our downstairs neighbor is a smoker. It’s not the first time we’ve had someone below us that smokes. We’ve asked our landlord before to not rent to smokers as the smell permeates the drop ceiling downstairs and makes its way through the floor and into our space. He says legally he can’t, which I think is bulls**t, but I digress.

The only place where we don’t wear a mask is at home, why would we? We wear one everywhere else, I even wear one while in the drive-thru lane at McDonalds or some other fast food establishment as a sign of respect to the person on the other side of that window. The only logical explanation is that our downstairs neighbor got a visit from ‘Rona from doing some questionable s**t (I know she does some questionable s**t, I hear a lot of things late at night). From there, I feel ‘Rona came to us by way of the smoke making its way into our apartment from downstairs.

Forward a couple weeks later, I’m feeling better, slowly getting my taste and smell back, and I think I’ll be investing in some form of a air purifier (as expensive as they are) at some point in the near future.

We’ve done everything all the experts and officials say to do, and we still end up getting that damn virus. I’m totally pissed.

That heifer ‘Rona has taken a lot away from me and a whole lot more from others.

I just want this to be over, I want to leave my house again for something that doesn’t involve getting something from the store that I can’t get delivered.

“I want to break free”
~~~Freddie Mercury/Queen