The test.

I've been feeling like crap. Worse than crap. Since Saturday, like day-old crap. My throat hurt. My upper palette felt like I'd been playing the Bonham drum solo from "Moby Dick" on it, and my uvula like Charles Laughton had been kicking it like the bells of Notre Dame. My breath was short. I was itchy all over. Actually, really itchy on my lower abdomen. Some kind of new creeping crud? Roving jock itch? Sounds like the worst Scotsman you could meet. "I be Jock McItch from Clan McItch, and I be roving across this abdomen."

Maybe this stream of thought will demonstrate that I was not sleeping very well, either. 

By fortune, I had been in the drugstore last week and, on a whim, picked up a box of COVID-19 tests. My wife was a little concerned that I might have the Chinese Death Virus, and suggested I take the test. Well, why not? Let's see if the Wuhan Wonders scored another goal against the Americans, shall we?

This was in the drugstore in the seasonal aisle, near the towels and swimsuits and pool toys and whatnot for travel. I doubt you're supposed to show the TSA your negative COVID test to get to your gate, so I suppose we're on the honor system. Still, it's good to know that you're not sick before you leave home. It's bad enough when you get sick at your destination and have to get home that way.

By the way, it's weird how pharmacies used to double as malt shops, but is it any weirder that now they double as baby shopping malls? You can get your meds, makeup, shampoo, milk, chocolate bars, seasonal clothing, greeting cards, toilet paper, and potato chips all in one go. 

Anyway. 

I liked taking the test, because it was like a junior chemist set. 

Better than a pregnancy test, because I didn't have to pee on anything. There was nothing in the instructions against peeing, but I didn't think it would help. On that topic, swishing the swab around my nostrils was rather like cleaning out two tiny little toilet bowls. Satisfying, but disgusting. 

Next the swab goes in the little vial, swishes around there, then the vial drips out into the test strip--exactly three drops. ("Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out.") Then wait 15 minutes. If you look before 15 minutes, you could get a false report; if you wait more than 30, ditto. So this is all very scientific. 

And at last, the results:

No Chinese Death Virus! 

So why have I been feeling so sick? Well, as it turned out, the itch on my abdomen resolved more clearly into three large welts, so I think I was bitten or stung by something poisonous -- one of nature's little bastards, like sweat bees or something -- while I was out with the dogs. I have a sensitivity, if not an outright allergy, to yellowjacket venom, and I wonder if it caused an allergic reaction that has given me allergy-like symptoms (not a closing of the throat as with anaphylaxis, but a mild version, with a sore throat). Or it could just be a damn cold. Those are going around, I hear.

So, I'm slathering up with steroid cream and calamine lotion, taking pseudoephedrine and cough drops and diphenhydramine and lots and lots of coffee, and soldiering on. What more can a man do?