Rant #2,792: A B C

Right at the get-go of this Rant, I am going to state that I am not going to get into an argument related to anything revolving around the coronavirus, its variants, about the way the country and the world is handling this scourge, or about shots and masks and mandates.
 
So don’t try to pick a fight with me related to your own personal agendas and paranoias.
 
I won’t get into it here, there or anywhere right now.
 
And if you pick a fight to show me how "ignorant" I am on this subject, you are gong to be ignored this time around for the stupidity you are showing in your own persistent need to be “right.”
 
Yesterday, my family and I had to go to a local clinic to get tested, because we were told that we were exposed to someone who tested positive for the coronavirus.
 
Actually, more to the point, someone at one of my son’s workplaces—he has two, this one is the one that he works in multiple days during the workweek—tested positive, alerted the management of the business, and thus, the office was closed down by mid-morning after a quick meeting of staff was held.
 
Our son called us up on the phone and told us to pick him up, and an executive from the company told us what had happened.
 
We picked him up, and went right to one of those walk-inn clinics where you do not need an appointment, a clinic that we had been to several times previously to be tested during other encounters with those who had been infected earlier this year and last year.
 
We entered the place, and I knew that the wait would be long ...
 
I could not find a parking space, and ended up parking in an area that was marked off for no parking, but since there were dozens of cars in the lot, I really had no choice, I wasn’t blocking anyone, so that is where I parked.
 
I had let off my wife and son before I parked, and when I walked in, what I thought was true was true—there were dozens of people there, and I do mean dozens.
 
And yes, due to the chatter we heard, most were there to get tested for COVID.
 
After we finally checked in—a laborious process which is done electronically—we actually found three seats, and we sat down to wait for us to be called in and the tests administered.
 
With so many people there, the wait was a long one.
 
In the meantime, others ahead of us were called in, and one guy—who had been sitting across from us and was talking with another person waiting for her test before he was finally called in—came out, went right back to his friend, and told her that he was infected.
 
That kind of put a damper on things for us, because we still had to wait for our tests to be administered.
 
Finally, after about a two-hour wait, we were called in to get the tests, called in as a family, which did speed up the process.
 
And then we were put into the test room, and asked a few questions by the person who was going to administer the rapid tests.
 
He determined that we would each need a rapid test—our son had to report back to his work about the results—and our son would also need the full test, since he was the one who came in direct contact with this infected person.
 
As the attendant left the room to get the testing materials, I once again asked my son and my wife how they felt, and in unison, they both said they felt fine.
 
I have been feeling really good lately myself, but as we now know, some people get this thing without the least bit of discomfort, so “feeling fine” means nothing in this case.
 
The attendant came back, gave us the quick test—five short swabs up each nostril—and said he would come back with the results, and then the doctor would come in to administer the full test on our son.
 
He came back a few minutes later and told us that even though the tests were not done being analyzed, it appeared that none of us had the virus.
 
We were happy about that, and when he came back just a few minutes after that and told us that we were totally in the clear, at least with the quick tests, we were happy.
 
Then the doctor came in and administered the full test to our son—long dabs into each nostril—and said it would be a few days before the results would be known.
 
We were given paperwork to acknowledge that we had the tests and the outcomes of the quick tests, and we left the facility.
 
We contacted my son’s work about the results of his test, and we were told that the office would be closed today, to give everyone there time to get their tests, and if everything was copacetic, the office would reopen on Friday.
 
Let’s hope so, because the last time something like this happened, our son was on furlough for seven months and eventually let go from this company, only to be rehired later on.
 
So again, there is no politics at all in this Rant, just the facts about one family, my family, that had to do what they had to do to make sure that we did not have the virus.
 
We are still awaiting our son’s full test, but we are pretty sure that it will come back negative.
 
We do not want him to go through what he went through last year related to this scourge, and we pray and hope that everyone in his office is OK.
 
And again, if you feel the need to tell me how insipid all of this is, please keep your thoughts to yourself.
 
Quite frankly, I am not interested in what you have to say, at least this time around.