Q non-anon

We have been quarantined.

Officially.

Well, one of us has, anyway.

The one who is currently stationed in his room, playing video games and texting his mother every so often to request snacks be placed outside of his doorway. The other three-quarters of the inhabitants here are just sitting around in various television-appointed rooms, wearing masks and fighting each other on the sets' warring volumes as we consume re-runs of shows no 13-year-old would ever want to watch.

Because that would be mean if somehow the nasal, deadpan voice of Bob Belcher wafted up through the floors, and that would be cruel. The possibility exists (though remote) that the maniacal laughter of any one of the cartoon Belchers could pierce some momentary silence in his never-ending game of Minecraft and cause a revolt.

 

So we'll watch "Murder She Wrote" or some old movies from the 70s ... but not the ones where Rebel forces take on the Empire.

You know, just in case.

Because while he is sequestered in his little corner of the house, we three are allowed out into the world, where we are still limiting our interactions with other humans, keeping our distance and trying not to breathe in or out even with three layers of fabric stretched ear-to-ear.

It's a complicated equation, but it was spelled out quite calmly and compassionately by a lovely woman from the local Department of Health. 

It all boils down to which of us are contacts of a positive, and which of us are contacts of the contact of the positive, not to mention which entities of civil society have determined what their policies will be moving forward into the unknown.

There's even a whole dance about who should get tested and when. You know, since test kits are still scarce. 

Asymptomatic? Maybe you'll find out you have the virus. Maybe you won't find out you have the virus. Maybe you won't have the virus?

The order of operations isn't as important as the fact that it's out there continually breeding.

Every day in the past seven months is a new adventure in not knowing but taking as few chances as possible. 

Either way, you'll need to follow the simple instructions of mask-wearing, limiting time indoors with people outside your so-called bubble, and keeping even small gatherings properly masked, socially distanced, and entirely outdoors.

None of which is 100 percent effective, evidently.

After all, running around the neighborhood, wearing two masks each with your two best buds, staying outside as you collect candy from the end of driveways seemed to be at the lowest end of the risk scale.

Especially for a kid who has barely left the house since April. 

Did we really need to let the kid leave the chair in front of the video game console - a piece of furniture he's virtually lived in for seven months - to go and do what, in any other time in history (barring 1918, of course) would be a harmless kid-thing to do?

But here we are checking temperatures obsessively, waiting for a list of vague symptoms to appear, and hoping we get to Sunday without any of them visiting. 

Who knew we could liven things up by taking a trip to a drive-in testing site to get an answer one way or another? Even with the uncomfortable swab, the kid decided it was worth it if only to leave his room for the better part of 20 minutes.