Reverse quarantine

This was a Monday with so much promise.

After seeing Tee off to the airport last night, my roomies and I enjoyed a leisurely night at home, watching movies, doing laundry, and resting up for the coming week. I even used that cooling mask thingy Mom gave me for Christmas after I journaled while listening to Celtic melodies. It was still early, so I drifted off for a full night’s sleep.

Until about 4:15.

The sound was familiar: someone was sick. I considered getting up and trying to help, but I recalled the last time I was praying to the porcelain god, I wanted nothing to do with anyone and didn’t want to get in the way. So I went back to sleep and prayed whichever roomie it was would be better by full morning.

I rose with energy and strength, ready to face a full five-day-session of a week. Sarah told me Allis was sick with all the symptoms that had leveled poor Ashley for her entire graduation weekend (much sadness). We got ready and headed out, leaving Allis on the couch watching movies to keep her mind off her waking misery.

I got to work, determined once again to finish April’s letters today – but not until I addressed my ever-growing correction pile. So I started, and about two letters in, the phone started ringing. Given our lack of staff assistant and competent interns, that meant it was the Leeann and Lodriguez show on the lit-up lines.

The phone didn’t stop being off the hook until about 1:30 p.m. EST.

We received calls from 35 of the 50 states today.

I never want boss to go on national media again. People fall in love with him too quickly.

Just as I was celebrating the sound of silence (even if it lasted only about five minutes at a time), an unwelcome email graced my inbox from roomie number two:

I don’t feel so good. I don’t know if it’s allergies or what Ash and Allis have.

Gulp.

I was still distracted by a myriad of calls and the stack of corrections Facch dropped on me, so I tried not to think about the possibility of being or getting sick.

Oh, and I forgot to mention I did leave the leg room between 8:30 and 1:30 – when one of the LAs brought his breakfast in, something of it smelled so foul that I had to run down the hall to avoid making a public spectacle of myself. Thankfully I did not have the weakness and generally ick feeling that both my roommates described, so aside from that brief episode, I had no symptoms and was functioning normally (though I think, if asked, my coworkers would describe me as more loopy than usual today. My way of dealing with the phones).

Then I got a second email from Sarah, which basically said I’m going home, I definitely have it, I hope I make it there. Great.

I decided then to stay at work as long as I could. With the vast amount of Purell around, we probably have one of the most sanitary offices on the Hill, which is rather counterintuitive when you consider it doubles as a frat house. In any case, no one there was sick, so I would not be so affected by their germs.

However, the phones took it out of me today; I was out of creative energy. I left the office at 7, was able to catch a yellow line by the skin of my teeth (and almost sliding across the slippery Metro floor in my new cream heels), and made it to the bus stop in plenty of time to catch my bus. As I waited, a text message arrived.

Stay at work. This is miserable.

Well, this is just perfect. I can’t afford to get sick this week. I have way too much going on at work, not to mention Cassidy’s graduation on Friday. I can NOT get sick. Of course, where else am I going to go?

I called home as I walked up to my house and hung out on the porch for a while, explained my predicament. I finally ventured inside and went straight to the kitchen, washed my hands, and started a simple dinner – holding a few tissues under my nose the whole time. I stayed as far away from my beloved roommates as I could at their behest. A drugged-up-sounding Allis told me to go spend the night with a friend or something. (Yeah, like who am I gonna crash with?!) Sarah asked that I not cook anything with an odor. Allis also told me I needed to hole up in my room and not come out.

So now I am sitting here on my bed, my sanctuary and prison, window wide open for air and door sealed shut, with my buttered pita and two-parts-chicken-broth-one-part-Tabasco concoction that I’m hoping will be an acceptable substitute for real chicken soup. I got home at 8:30; what do you expect?

The sickies have their run of the place and the healthy are confined to their nook. I am just thankful I have any place to be at all that is uncontaminated.

A reverse quarantine. Eeish.

Hope it works.