Our local corner store had been closed, kind of conspicuously, for more than a week with a cryptic sign out front saying it was being cleaned. We’d been there a few times over the past month and the last time the owner had taken his mask off while talking to me for longer than I was comfortable with, which set me into a panic but I wasn’t sure what to do — do you shout “no!” and scramble backwards or what? Anyway, I wasn’t surprised when a neighbor told me that the proprietor had caught COVID and was home sick. I called my doctor and told them I’d been exposed to someone who’d tested positive for COVID and they moved swiftly. They told me to isolate immediately and they sent a referral to a testing site. I called the site and got an appointment for the next morning at 8 am. It was an outdoor testing center — a tent city set up in a parking lot, the type I’d photographed before. There was one person in front of me and I could see her sit down and the nurse get out a swab. I was very anxious about the swabbing since I’d heard horror stories from nurses about how uncomfortable it was. And watching the woman in front of me it sure seemed like swab was in her nose for an awful lot of time, which made me more anxious. When it was finally my turn I was planning on video taping my test but they politely told me no photos were permitted. So I sat down and was very relieved, though also sightly disappointed to discover I wasn’t getting the nasopharyngeal swab test that goes all the way to the back of your throat through your nose. The nurse just twirled a swab around lightly in my nostril for a few seconds, then the other one then I was done. I woke up the next morning to an email letting me know my test was negative. The whole thing was pretty efficient, but I know friends in other places have been waiting more than a week for test results.
