Waiting, how much of our time do we spend waiting? Think about it; we wait at the bus stop, we wait in the queue at Tesco while the painfully slow cashier tries to engage you in small talk; we wait to be picked up after choir practice and, of course, it’s raining, and you’ve forgotten your jacket with the HOOD. Waiting. And here I am thinking about the ordeal of waiting while, guess what? You’ve guessed it…waiting.

Here I am in the testing centre and one thing that’s worse than waiting is waiting on news that you already know to be bad. It’s just a matter of confirmation really. I’m afraid Ms O’Reilly but I can confirm that you have that pandemic thing everyone is talking about.

Yup waiting on bad news is worse than just waiting. So, if the average person lives to the age of 74, I reckon they spend about 10 of those years waiting, that’s 3,648 days, that’s 87,600 hours spent on wasted time.

I look across the waiting room to the sunken cheekbones of an elderly man and I can’t help but think of all the time that poor wretched soul has wasted and is wasting yet again.
I shuffle in my seat, careful to keep my arms and elbows close to avoid the spread. Dad senses my discomfort and chimes in with his, “It will be okay Laura, you really are imagining the worst, just wait until we get the result and then we’ll take it from there.”  

Wait until we get the results? Eye roll please. Typical Dad, with his usual glass half full approach to life. I, instead, want to take that glass and fling it against the wall so that all that ‘half full’ liquid can dissolve those faded posters of healthy living lifestyles, the visuals of how to wash your hands properly, and the poster with the signs & symptoms of covid with contact & support helpline information.

A helpline needs to be set up so that people can chat to someone while they’re waiting. The irony being, you’d probably be put on hold while waiting to talk to someone about waiting.

So, I turn my attention to watching instead of wating and focus on the other folk in the waiting room.

There’s a pregnant woman who rubs her round belly and brushes the floor with her sandals, her puffy ankles spilling through the straps. How much longer does she have to wait? A man who leans in his chair and stretches his legs across the floor, patches of muck falling from his boots which is forming a paste on the overly bleached lino. He keeps making that irksome whistling sound through his mask. Why are people so annoying? Two metres apart … it should be ten metres apart from some. He’s already taking up like three metres of space. More hand gel please.

Okay, so let’s say I do have this ‘C’ thing. What then? What’s the deal with this whole contact tracing business because there may be a problem there. I can’t exactly tell these astronaut looking people who I’ve really been in contact with, in front of Dad. He doesn’t know I went to Jessica’s house party on Friday night. I told him I was going to Sarah’s to study for our GCSE exams. Like how gullible is he? We’re not even sitting any GCSE exams this year. I love him but he’s laughably gullible. Like how many times have I gotten out of so many chores by alluding to my ‘lady problems’? Works every time!

But back to the main problem. Like, do I have to contact everyone I was with in the last few days? Ring ring, Oh hi Adam, it’s me, Laura. Remember at Jessica’s party the way we were kissing on the sofa? Yeah, well it turns out I have covid so you may want to get yourself swabbed there. Byeeee.
This is a nightmare! And what happens when I go in here and they tell me, I’m positive? Are they going to escort me to a secret back door? Please proceed this way Ms.O’ Reilly into this dark cell here with no light, heat or windows and wait here for 14 days.

Maybe I’m being slightly dramatic but 14 days at home with Dad, doing our quarantine thing, doesn’t sound like fun to me and I know Dad is going to suggest we do something together like repaint the house. Yeah it will be fun. No, it won’t Dad! You’ll be constantly nagging me for letting splats of paint fall onto the wooden floors and I will get annoyed at your constant rendition of Thunderstruck. Oh I can already feel the ‘lady problems’ coming on again as we’re called into the results room.

We’re asked to sit. The nurse fumbles with her glasses that are caught in her hair with one hand, and with the other, she tries to in vain to read the result on the flip chart. Eyes squinting, nose turned upwards so that we have full view to the contents of her nostrils. Oh dear God, I’m going to lose it…

So, as it turns out I do not have covid. The health care lady happily informed me that I had nothing more than the common cold and I sniffled my way out the door delighted to be among the land of the free again. Land of the free wearing masks and keeping two metres apart of course. But no more waiting around for me.

Life may resume. I am saying this as we wait on your car parking ticket to be stamped by the incredible SLOW ticket stamping person! Will you just hurry up, I’ve hanging out to do you know! Now that I don’t have covid, Dad makes the mad suggestion that we should go out exercising together.
Like seriously what? Sorry Dad, ‘lady problems’ again. Works every time!