funny bone

Niles, my hairdresser-bestie, and I live in the same building. He’s in my “bubble” so we have dinner together a lot. Monday before last dinner on his balcony was like any other since March. His housekeeper, Hortensia, was there cooking, cleaning…

On Tuesday Hortensia’s sister was sick, so she got tested. On Wednesday sis learned she’d tested POSITIVE. So Hortensia tested, and yes, unfortunately: POSITIVE.

Niles got tested and said it was “easy-peasy” at the drive-through set-up at the Veteran’s building, plus he got his NEGATIVE results within 24 hours.

I went to the website,  filled out the forms, watched the video twice (“don’t drop anything”) printed the receipt with my number… so far so good.

On Saturday I was psyched to go. The line was long, but kept moving. It took about an hour to go through. One of the masked guides told me to go to Tent #1. When I got there, I asked the next masked guide if there would be another Tent #1 and she told me there would be. She asked if I’d been there before.

No it’s my first time.

She explained that up ahead they’d tell me what to do… piece of cake, right? Uhhhhh… not exactly for me.

Passing a sign PUT ON YOUR MASK, I eventually I got to a window where a guy asked for my number and then attached a sealed plastic bag with the test kit on one of those extended grabber things and pointed it to me in my car.  After I grabbed the plastic bag, he told me to roll up my window, which I did.

After that something went wrong, because I followed the car in front of me for awhile without stopping and noticed that the driver dropped something in a receptacle and continued to drive on. I had no idea what he was doing since no one had told me to take the test yet and there’d been no place to stop and do what was shown in the video. I continued in the moving car line, a little nervously…

The next masked guide told me to get into Row 3, which I was aware wasn’t Row 1, but I figured maybe I didn’t have to get to Tent #1 after all.

Then, after I’d been there an hour my car line exited out! I FREAKED and pulled over to the side as quickly as I could.  Frantically I opened my plastic bag, but in my nervousness, the white gauzy circle-thing fell to my car floor. Noooooo! (“don’t drop anything.”) I speed-dialed Niles.

Am I supposed to take my test in the car and send it somewhere?!

No– didn’t someone watch you take the test?

No, and Niles —  I accidentally dropped my white gauzy-circle thing!

I walked back and asked a CUTE MASKED GUY in a white gauzy-cover-up for the “person in charge.” He told me to walk ahead and he’d get someone to meet me. Someone  did and he said to find someone in white and ask him/her to watch me take the test. So I walked back to the CUTE MASKED GUY and he guided me through the test. He said “good job” and then took the bag from me via another one of those extended grabber things. Oh… that white gauzy-circle thing? That was just to put in the bag in case of spillage. It didn’t have to be sterile, phew!

Honestly, I still don’t know what I did wrong (a recurring theme for me) but I’m happy to report that I got my results in 25 hours:

For me, the test was more of a Drive-By than a Drive-Through, but I’m very grateful to have eventually tested NEGATIVE.

Thankfully Hortensia and her sister are on on the mend.

It’s weird how in this case positive is negative and negative is positive, but that’s what happens in the upside-down-world we all live in.

Stay safe…

xo/evie