The good news? I might have just made a new best friend.
The bad new? Look, amigo, I ain’t got time for no buddy…
Editor’s note: you have found yourself in the thick of the epic, the one, the only, The Long Tale of COVID. If you need to catch up, you can find all the posts here. Enjoy!
“I really loved hearing about your meditative methods. I’m sure they could help me in my struggles with loneliness.”
I was just wrapping up an impromptu and enjoyable overly-personal conversation with my Urgent Care triage nurse, Nurse Cami–who you already know by now–and I was starting to get a tingling sensation at the thought that I might have just made the world a better place, albeit one soul at a time.
“I’m glad to hear that I might make a new convert out of you yet!” I responded with a genuine smile.
“Yes, and I would be interested in learning more…” Cami continued, gesturing towards the chair were I had left my personal belongings.
“Oh, I’ll bet you’ll love it!” I said encouragingly, despite not knowing what my hoodie and my wallet had to do with the topic at hand.
“Once you’ve recovered from COVID, I would love to get together for some coffee or drinks and you can teach me more about it.”
Great. Just great. Cami was wanting to be friends IRL.1IRL mean “In Real Life.”
I mean, I really enjoyed getting to know ol’ Nurse Cami as a person and all…but… But I’m a grown-ass family man in my 40s. I have two old friends from grad school still in the area, and even then I still don’t hang out with them nearly as much as I would like.
Sorry, Cami, I just don’t have time for new friends, or old friends–or any type of friends!
But, I didn’t want to be rude, of course…
“Heh-heh,” I chuckled nervously, “Well, I have to survive it first. I’m just focused on making it to next week alive…”
“I’m 100% confident that you’ll be just fine!”
“Fingers crossed…” I said, with as much optimism I could muster.
“…that you’ll forget about trying to meet up with me…” I mumbled under my breath…
“Here, let me give you my number, and you can just shoot me a text when you’re feeling all better,” said Cami, undeterred.
“Umm, okay.” So that was what my personal belongings had to do with all this. “Yeah, sure, I guess. Let me grab my tel–“
“Your telefono, yes! You ready?” Cami’s native Spanish shone through, making me lightly chuckle.
“Sure, go ahead…”
“Seven-five-four…”
“Ah! That’s right…of course you have a Miami number…” I felt like a rather observant student.
“Ah, sí, I sure do miss that place..anyways, mi numero: two-four-five…” Cami continued on until I had all 10 digits in my, uh, telefono.
“Great! How should I put your name in here?” Truth be told, I hadn’t been paying enough attention to actually know Cami’s name at this point.
“Just put me down as ‘Nurse Cami’,” Cami said, tapping on the name tag that I should have seen be now. “That should be a good way to remember me.”
“Sweet, I’ll just head out–” I couldn’t even finish my dang sentence.
“Why don’t you go ahead and shoot me a test-text, make sure you got me in there right?”
Dangit.
“Oh, of course! Silly me–why I didn’t I think of that?”
Honestly, though, I was thinking this would have been so much easier if Cami didn’t have my number.
As I pushed send on the text, it occurred to me that Cami might be confused about my name.
“Just so you know, Cami, although you’ve seen my name on paper as ‘Robert’, I actually go ‘B.J.’…”
“¿Bee-yhay?“
Oh, dulce Jesús, how did I not see that one coming a mile away???
I barely suppressed a snort, as in my mind I was having a regular Pee-Wee’s Playhouse moment:
Why did I find this phrase so, uh, ‘special,’ you may ask?
Well, I’ll tell you why…or, more accurately, I already did–you can read all about it here.
*Snort snort*
After I internally picked up my laughing ass from rolling on the floor, I just kindly replied:
“Yes, Bee-Jay.”
Cami’s phone buzzed, and then–if that wasn’t enough proof that we had successfully exchanged numeros–my phone buzzed back:
Awww…Cami thinks of me as a “buddy”…
“BUZZ! BUZZ!”
Only moments later, back in the waiting room, and my telefono already be blowin’ up? Who could it be? My concerned wife? My caring mother? Hmm…let’s see here:
Oh, it’s just Captain Obvious reminding Captain BlueBalls that they are successfully ‘in touch’. A hilariously unnecessary text if you ask me. Like, “No shit, Sherlock.”
Needing a distraction, I tried to take my mind off of…well, everything, so I decided to finally tackle my singular goal for my COVID-cation (oh, that’s right, some of you may need to start this journey from the beginning…go ahead, I’ll wait).
And since I’m pretty sure we’ve all totally forgotten what the stated goal of my extended ‘me time’ was, I’ll remind you: to write my danged blog post for the week–and thanks to all the misadventures thus far, I was down to only but a few hours to get ‘er done.
No computer, though? No problem! For the first time, I decided that I might as well try to blog away on the small screen of my iPhone. Sure, it might take a bit longer without the luxury of a keyboard, but it’ll do for getting my main thoughts and punchlines into the digital record, right? Right.
(Quick side note: if you wondering which, exactly, of my famed and hallowed posts I actually composed in that Urgent Care waiting area…you can click here…)
So there I was, tapping away furiously on my telefono in my own little corner of the waiting room,2I was attempting to self-isolate, because, yes, I felt like a complete arsehole for being that guy with COVID just hanging around. when a woman a few seats along the adjacent wall, maybe in her mid-50s, caught my attention.
This woman, she just kept…looking. Looking in my direction, but not smiling, not scowling. Just looking approximately at me–there was no one else in my vicinity–but not directly at me. It was like she was unintentionally avoiding eye contact. Just looking, looking, looking…looking slightly shocked, maybe?3Okay, I might have gotten this out of chronological order…this might have happened before my initial examination, and when I realized that I was missing certain pieces of my wardrobe.
“Strange, strange woman.” I thought to myself. “Like, what is her deal? She’s kinda starting to creep me out.”
It wasn’t until much much later that it occurred to me that, “Oh, yeah, that’s right, I totes forgot that I was just hanging out in my mesh shorts, free-ballin’ in the wind. Ooops. My bad.”
The funny thing is, this really has nothing to do with the main plot–just another little side-show to the larger freak-show that had been unfolding over the last few days…
“BUZZ! BUZZ!”
The vibrating telefono brought Bee-Yhey/ol’ Captain BlueBalls back to reality. These ----- texts were making it hard to get my bloggin’ on–who is it now? Hmm…let’s see:
Dammit, Cami…”no agenda”? What does that even mean??? And is this really the right context for using random emojis?
Not sure what to say, so…um…random laughing emoji back at you?
Now, back to my blo–
“BUZZ! BUZZ!“
Oh, for f*ck’s sake! Or–as Oscar the Grouch would say:
“WHAT NOW???”
Surely it’s not…it couldn’t be…crap, it’s my Nurse again:
While I truly appreciate Cami’s…um…enthusiasm(?) for learning, it’s just…WHAT’S WITH THE WEIRD EMOJIS?!?
Okay, back to my blogging…
*Types in peace for a solid 10 minutes*
“BUZZ! BUZZ!“
*Sigh* Here we go again…
Oh, well, that’s a pleasant surprise: some actually useful info instead of…whatever the hell those last few texts were. Here, Cami, back in the bowels of the nurses’ station, is reassuring me that I am only moments away from being seen by a real doctor.
In the words of my reply: “Sweet.”
…
“BUZZ! BUZZ!
What do you think folks? Should I look?
Sure…why not?
Hey, wait a minute…I’m starting to notice a suspiciously excessive use of emojis…
Um…
Oh sh*t.
Exactly what kind of “buddy” does Cami want to be…?41: Stay tuned, you Big Dummy; and 2: If you’re wondering what type of “buddy” I’m worried about being viewed as, I’ll give you a hint: this episode was brought to you by the Letter F…
Content created on: 11/12 November 2022 (Fri/Sat)
Footnotes & References:
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