Friday March 13, 2020 – Day 0 of Quarantine
I am writing this so that you, the Vault Dweller emerging from Atlanta Vault 404 in the distant future, will be able to piece together what happened during the downfall. And finding all of these will probably get you an achievement trophy.
And that’s about as funny as I can get right now.
They shut down our office today. We’ve been officially told that it will be for the next two weeks, but unofficially that it will more likely last for six or eight. Either way, I packed up everything and took it home so I can work from here.
Well, not at first. I had to take my wife, Becky, in to get some tests done at the medical center near us. Standard stuff; ultrasound, mammogram, bone density, blood tests, that sort of thing. It had been scheduled a few weeks ago before all this came up, and we hadn’t heard anything else, so we went.
They were checking everyone as they came in; basically, a few questions about if you had been coughing (I have, but it’s because of allergies (damn Bradford pears!)) and if you had been out of the country or near anyone who was sick. They also took our temperature. Then they gave us an orange passcard and let us in.
Tests went fine, I took Becky back home, and went to work.
There I had one meeting, then they gave the word to pack up and work from home for two weeks. I took everything except my monitors; I have two extra ones here that I can use.
I had just gotten everything packed up when Becky called. Now her stomach was bothering her, she was in pain, and I needed to take her to the doctor. So I came home and took her up to Urgent Care; there was no way we would get an appointment with her doctor.
Urgent Care was jam-packed, and most people there were wearing masks. And there was someone behind the desk showing the staff how to use full hazmat suits. Fun. We eventually got in.
The technician who did the initial screening gave us a bit of a hard time because to be fair, we have been there a lot for her “stomach pains.” Especially when Becky could barely describe any symptoms and admitted that she still had cramping medicine from the last time we were there. When Becky left to go to the restroom at one point, she basically asked me why I was wasting their time.
When the actual doctor showed up, she was more helpful but did say we didn’t need to come in for a while. She gave us a 90-day supply of Becky’s cramping medicine so that we wouldn’t have to come back for a while.
I told Becky that I had to go back to my office to finish packing up. Actually, I didn’t; I just wanted an excuse to hang out away from the house for one last time.
I went down to one of my usual hangouts, which is the bar at the Buffalo Wild Wing on Barrett Parkway. (Don’t judge me.) The bartender was surprised to see me on a Friday, and early. (They aren’t my usual Friday stop; that’s the taproom at Red Hare Brewing, but that was much further away.) I told her about our work-from-home order and that I wanted to say to her and my other bartender friend there where I would be.
I also wanted to write about this.
I’m leaving her a $10 tip. If this keeps going the way it looks, she may not be getting business for a while.
—-
I made two grocery store stops on the way back home. At Publix, the shelves were barer than I had expected; it looked like when they have forecast snow for the next day here in Atlanta. I grabbed a couple of steaks because they were out of most other things, a big pack of paper towels (they were completely out of toilet paper), and some bread from the bakery (there were no packages loaves on the shelves). And some beer.
Plus, I got Becky’s prescription from the Kroger. Their shelves were just as bare, so I didn’t add to what I had bought.
But… here we are. I’m going to take over Becky’s old office downstairs since there are way too many distractions in “my” office. I need to clear it out, but I’ll take care of that over the weekend.
Leave a Reply