A few weeks ago, I posted about attending WWE Smackdown. The week after attending Smackdown, I tested positive for COVID-19. After not getting the official disease of the 2020 Pandemic ever before, I finally got it on the two year anniversary of the shutdown.

Let me start off by saying “Thank the gods for vaccines.” I didn’t feel great for those first couple of days (fever, chills, body aches, headache, cough…), but I might have felt much worse if it weren’t for my Johnson & Johnson Vaccine and Booster shot.

*Side Quest: If you haven’t got your vaccine or booster shot, maybe it’s time to make a change? This thing isn’t going away anytime soon.

Remember a time where we used to share air with strangers. We would sit in waiting rooms or on airplanes for hours at a time and just breathe the same air as people we didn’t know. Then COVID hit, and everything got weird. We don’t even want to share the same air with certain people we do know. Now we watch old movies and shows and think, Why isn’t anyone wearing a mask?

A valuable lesson I learned from having COVID is that you can have strangers do tasks for you, and not only will they gladly perform the task, they will also say,
“Thank you.”

I was told (by a doctor) to quarantine for 5-7 days from when I first became ill. I quarantined for 10+ days. I stayed out of stores, and places where the people were. When I had to ride in an elevator, I made sure it was empty.

More than once, I needed to pick up some drugs from the local pharmacy. Before driving over I called to let them know that I had tested positive for COVID. I asked if they could bring my medicine outside, so I wouldn’t have to go in the store and infect everyone — there’s no drive thru at this local pharmacy.

What caught me off guard was when the pharmacist paused after I had made my request and said, “Sure, and THANK YOU for that.” That moment was the closest I will ever come to knowing what it feels like for a veteran when someone says, “Thank you for your service.” That moment and when I finally picked up the medicine and the other pharmacist also thanked me for my service.

Not only was I doing the “right thing,” but I was being recognized for it. It was a nice feeling that I don’t get to experience very often. My next thought was should I start ordering food to pick up on the sidewalk just to be thanked again? I didn’t do it.

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I’m now COVID free and ready to do stuff again, with my mask on of course. I did wear my mask to WWE Smackdown, but I also had one beer. And I’m sure that pulling my mask on and off at the beginning to enjoy that beer was how the COVID got in me. Also, being around a bunch of maskless dum dum Roman Reigns fans didn’t help.

*There’s no scientific proof that I picked up COVID at WWE Smackdown, and I would still go to Smackdown (and RAW) in the future. It just happened to be the most crowded place I visited that week.