So, if we’re going to have a worldwide pandemic, the guy who can’t stop bitching about everything is going to get it. And of course it’s not going to kill me, it’s just going to make my life slightly more difficult and considerably less enjoyable.
I work at a community college in rural Nebraska. There is no significant amount of importance associated with my job. I’m not shaping young minds. I’m not helping people decide on fulfilling career paths. I sell overpriced textbooks to poor community college students. One thing about working at an institute of higher learning during a pandemic is we are very careful. Masks are required by everyone on campus. Sanitizing is a constant, and we all take our responsibilities seriously. We have a campus full of students and we do not want to be responsible for any of those students getting sick, or worse yet, taking sickness home to families and loved ones. You can call us snowflakes or whatever makes you feel more like an American…
Anywho, so we were all very careful and we seemed to have our crap under control at the community college. My coworker in the bookstore and I were using caution with everything we did in the bookstore to keep our students, staff and faculty safe from the virus. The problem starts with my coworker’s second job.
On the weekends, my coworker tends bar in rural Nebraska. Now, yes, I’m already in rural Nebraska, but this bar is even more rural. Like, think Mayberry from the Andy Griffith show, full of Gomers and Barneys. These people aren’t going to take much of anything serious about a global pandemic, especially if it interferes with their boozing on the weekend… or on a weeknight… or on a Tuesday morning. Masks are unheard of in locations such as this, and sanitizing is something reserved for a young bull’s balls before turning him into a steer. So, around mid-October, my coworker caught the Covid on a weekend night, and a couple of days later, she gave it to me.
The first thing that clued both of us in to the fact that we had the virus was the loss taste and smell. My coworker let me know on a Monday that she had lost hers. We sent her home and sanitized the crap out of the bookstore. Three days later, I lost mine. They sent me home, where I proceeded to give it to the wife.
Now, all of the people who had our strain of the Covid lost smell and taste. Some had headaches, some had body aches, some had fatigue. None of us had serious respiratory issues. Everyone involved with our particular strain of the Covid regained the senses after a few days. For me, fatigue and brain fog were the worst part of it. I couldn’t think straight. I couldn’t remember how to log into my portal for work to check my work email. I got frustrated easily, and the more frustrated I got, the less clearly I could think, so I’d just end up sitting in my recliner and falling asleep. When I would try to wake up, it would take me five to ten minutes to come out of the fog of sleep and be able to somewhat function. But I didn’t die, and this thing is killing a lot of people, so some would say I’m pretty lucky.
I still get a bit brain foggy when I get stressed, and my ever-present anxieties seem to be noticeably more prevalent in my day-to-day thoughts, which kind of sucks. But other than that, I feel pretty much back to my negative old self. Oh, except I still can’t taste or smell things right. Every once in awhile, I get a whiff of something familiar, or I can momentarily taste the smokiness in a piece of bacon, but overall, yeah, nothing tastes or smells. Going on three months, and two of my five senses seem to be on sabbatical with no known return-to-work date. That made Thanksgiving and Christmas a little disappointing. One of the few pleasures I get out of life is enjoying good food.
You might think that my senses taking a vacation would make me a little bitter. You would be so wrong! Even if I never fully get my senses back, even if my anxieties reach a point of completely crippling me socially, I will feel that I have made a sacrifice for America! And I’d make this sacrifice again if it meant that a brave Nebraska patriot could go express his God-given right to get shit-faced at a bar with his buddies on a Friday night…
