On Monday, I pulled up to the first health department site and was surprised to see a sign out front that stated that the site was closed because of "lightning". I drove to another free site and got in line. Thunder cracked through the air and the testers came out and informed us that they too were closing because of lightning. I drove home.
Tuesday, I tried again and drove to a different, roving health department testing site. I was surprised to get in there really fast. I registered while standing there on an app on my phone and walked over to a tent where a volunteer handed me a bag via a really long set of pinchers. It had my test inside and my name and date of birth on the outside. I walked to the next tent and waited for the plastic covered volunteer to finish fumigating a chair, then sat in it as he stood six feet away from me, directing me how to perform the nasal swab myself. The swab was like a mascara wand on a long stick. I did the deed and handed him back the bag.
"Do you guys have an idea of how long the results might take?" I asked cautiously.
"I did my own test a week ago Monday and just got the results back last night." the volunteer answered.
Eight days.
"Thanks." I said repeatedly and left.
The school year officially began on Wednesday. My district decided not to pay us for five days worth of our salaries this year and instead, replaced four of them with a stipend-paid "learning institute". The stipend is about one hundred dollars a day less than I usually make and for the fifth day, I get nothing.
Each day began with a TEAMS call. Everyone has pretty much learned to mute their microphones and keep the camera off at this point. We were guided through a series of online modules and instructed to do small activities and upload our work into multiple folders and platforms in order to receive our stipend pay. In the afternoon, we were told to work independently but to stay on the TEAMS call, muted. By Thursday, things started getting strange. The calls were lasting from eight in the morning until five in the afternoon, most of it in muted silence.
I laid on my bed with Lola doing modules, hearing people occasionally unmute their microphones.
"Rainier...Rainier...." the meanest teacher in the school suddenly began whispering into his microphone.
"I need help! I don't know what I'm doing!" he whispered furiously.
It was weird hearing him in my bedroom.
He was met with radio silence. Lola rolled over on her other side.
"Oh hey....." Ms. Rainier suddenly purred.
"Sorry....I was eatin'...what'd you need....?" she continued in a sleepy tone, her southern drawl dragging her words out.
At random times someone would inadvertently unmute themselves, causing half the school to also unmute themselves and yell "MUTE YOURSELF!" before the offender said anything embarrassing.
"Anyone wanna hear a song?" another teacher offered one afternoon, breaking hours of silence.
"Sure." I responded in the chat. I ended up sort of regretting that.
I was getting texts, too. Laughing, complaining, or requesting to copy my work.
It felt like some giant, metro-Atlanta sleep over.
Thursday night, I received a message from the health department. My COVID test had been damaged in transport and was inconclusive. They requested that I come back and be tested again.
Friday, they let us out for a long lunch, but requested that we keep the TEAMS call rolling but our microphones muted. I let the TEAMS call operate on auto-pilot and drove to another testing center. I sat in a line of cars in a giant, cracked, sunbaked Porsche parking lot next to the airport, waiting for my turn to get tested again.
I looked up at the the big, commercial planes flying overhead and suddenly had an overwhelming urge to cry. I got myself together, just in time to shove the mascara wand up my nose again.
*Title, REM
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