Covid 19 – has it become your youngest child who just won’t leave home. They keep promising to go, but continue to come up with an excuse to linger a while longer. At least you still talk to your kid, even if it’s mostly to ask if they’ve found their own place yet. But if you’re anything like me, you’re sick of hearing and talking about The Vid. That’s what Cathryn calls it, The Vid.

The buzz and belly aching and discussion of the pandemic of the century is partly the reason we fled to Mexico for the winter. Okay, you’re right, I’m full of shit. We definitely heard less about The Vid on our journey south…hard to believe when they recently hit a million cases in one day in the United States of Anarchists.

Only a day into our trip south, masks, social distancing, and all talk about the plague was virtually non-existent. Yet, when we crossed the border to Mexico, we found rules similar to those at home, without mass lockdowns. They took our temperature, sanitized us and required everyone to wear masks in any indoor places we visited.

Things are different everywhere you go and although you can’t actually see The Vid, it is all around us. Maybe they should sell masks that say ‘vid’ and ‘no vid’. How else can we tell is someone’s got it or had it. I think I had it. There, I said it. Is it okay to tell people? I feel like I’m publicly announcing I have AIDS. Stay back, he’s got The Vid!

You can call me a vaxer, conformist or even a sheep, since I got my two vaccinations, the booster, and my flu shot. I did it more for everyone around me than myself. But my throat started to bother me before we left home and I loaded up on vitamin C. No big deal, I thought, because I always get sick around the holidays, whether at home or away.

But what if I’ve got The Vid, I wondered. Because any cold or flu symptoms have to be The Vid – that’s how it disguises itself. Things didn’t get worse until a week later, in Mexico. Stuffy nose, sinus headache and congestion, and a really sore throat. Again, it couldn’t be The Vid, because I get these kinds of symptoms every year when I’m sick.

When I started needing two naps a day instead of one, I said to Cathryn, “I think I’ve got The Vid.” She looked at me as if I just told her I had terminal cancer. I responded that I googled the symptoms and mine matched perfectly, and that maybe I should get tested – you know, to see if I was one of those dirty people with the disease.

So, I slept on it and thought about it some more. All those yahoos in the bars and restaurants carrying on without masks, hugging and kissing and spitting in each other’s faces while Cathryn and I huddled at a table in the corner, away from the mayhem. If I didn’t have The Vid, it was only a matter of time. Isn’t that the real answer – let everyone contract the virus and build herd immunity?

After more thinking, I decided not to get tested. Not so much because I was on the mend after three shitty days, but because I’m calling myself a ‘Non-Tester’. I know I was sick, and it may or may not have been The Vid, so why do I need to spend my beer money on a test that will confirm to the rest of the world that I’m one of ‘those’ people, a statistic, someone who’s got The Vid. And as life goes on…so do I.