IF I EVER GET OUT OF HERE

IF I EVER GET OUT OF HERE

I’d been lucky with the COVID thing until last week – I masked whenever and wherever required, and many times and places when and where it was not. Stayed away from anyone with or around it, and so on,

Wednesday last I had a few sniffles as I went to yoga class. I felt weak, so weak that I fell out of downward dog, breathing came hard, and the sniffles got worse. [foreshadowing any comments, had I had any indication that this was more than either a slight cold or old man drainage, I’d of worn a mask]. Probably shoulda, but I didn’t.

Anyway, by the time I got home I was weak, slightly nauseous, and a bit disoriented. So I got down one of our COVID tests, Flowflex, and struggled to follow the instructions. I don’t know if it was because of the way they were written or because of my disorientation, or normal denseness when it comes to following instructions, it took me awhile.

But I did it.

And yes, the lines showed up. Solid. To be absolutely sure, I got down one of the other test kits (by another manufacturer) and ran it again. Yep. Kinda felt like it must be to get an unwanted answer on a pregnancy test. COVID hit me hard, I was super-tired and slightly achy and definitely nervous about it – this was another chink in my aura of immortality, and for awhile I honestly felt like it was the big one. Tested my slightly sniffly son, and yes again. He has to stay home from work for the next five days.

Now here’s where things got interesting. Texted Wife at her far-out-of-town conference, where she serves on a panel. She got tested and it came back negative, but they decided she should participate virtually from her snooty hotel room. Not that she's suffering. They bought her meals and had them delivered. She comes home tonight.

Thing is, she is scheduled to travel overseas in a week. Business and pleasure. The business she can maybe do remotely, but the pleasure part is booked on our tab and nonrefundable. So we have to do our damned best to keep from exposing her, with the three of us in this relatively small ranch house. So I’m going to (and have since the test) stay in the basement, except when I must emerge, like fixing meals for son and I. I’ll be in the finished part of the basement, where I have my writing space and books and a couch and a daybed. And my own bathroom. Also a few small critters with legs ranging from four to six to eight.

Wife is going to stay in our bedroom, with its own bathroom, and going to use what used to be my daughter’s bedroom which is now W’s office. Son will have his room and his office (was a mutual office in the days of desktop computers). And the main bathroom will be his.

We will share the rest of the house as needed, but always masked around Wife and ideally on a schedule, avoiding personal contact with her as much as possible. We'll communicate largely by text (how 21st century is that?). Wife says she will cook for us (“yay”, say both my son and I), but son and I must eat separately from her. Son and I don’t have to be masked all the time when together, but if either displays any more symptoms, we need to be masked around each other and eat separately. BTW his symptoms have dissipated.

Sounds doable, and likely to work, but that COVID is a sneaky devil.