Positively doing time

Don’t tell anyone, but I just took my trash out. The garbage room is maybe 50 steps outside my apartment door, down to the right. I also grabbed a couple of Vanity Fairs that were lying on the free table. But please keep it a secret.

I’m in jail and cannot leave my apartment until Tuesday. I tested positive. Crap! 

Somehow, this is my first go-round with COVID, and it hit me like a truck. I felt fine until Tuesday night, but I still didn’t think anything of it. I NyQuil’d myself to death and felt better Wednesday morning, so I went to spin class. Right now, the spin class consists of me and the instructor, who happens to be one of our nurses.

Came home, showered and ate breakfast. Business as usual. I was dressed for work and even had my bag over my shoulder when I got hit by a truck. It was mostly exhaustion. I took my temperature and was shocked that it was pretty high, but I figured it was a mistake. I gave it a few minutes and took it again, and it had gone up.

Since I figured it had to be COVID, I felt I owed it to the spin class instructor to warn her, because, although we were more than six feet apart and in a giant room, she would have been my closest contact. And since she was the nurse, she came over and tested me. At that point my fever had started to come down – it hit about 102.5 – but I was still exhausted. The nurse asked me why I still dressed for work, and it was simply because I was too tired to change. I couldn’t even pick up the remote.

I worked from home, which was a bummer because last night was my boss’s going-away party. The bigger boss is leaving and was giving all the big bosses send-offs, and last night was my boss’s turn. I was bummed to miss it. Although someone brought me take-out, we were giving him going-away gifts and I wanted to be a part of that.

Instead, I crawled into bed at 7 p.m., which was the same time the party started. I guess it went well; I haven’t heard, and I haven’t eaten the take-out. Really, I haven’t eaten much. I haven’t lost my taste but so far I have zero appetite, which seems strange because I am hungry.

Fortunately, I still have plenty of food in my apartment. I’ve found lots of pasta on the free table, plus some quinoa. The freezer also has a couple meals, so hopefully I’ll make it till Tuesday. If I change my mind, though, I can always ask someone to bring me something from the cafeteria.   

Mostly, though, it’s just going to be fighting boredom. I mean, I have work to do, but tomorrow is the weekend. I have no idea what I am going to do to stay busy. I guess it will probably be streaming, because there’s really nothing else to do. I can’t even go outside and walk around the compound.

This place is already like a minimum-security prison, and now I am in solitary confinement.