They Don’t Really Care About Us

I got my test results back sooner than I expected. This time I didn’t even have the butterflies in my stomach when I went with my co-worker and childhood friend to take the test at the drive through testing place just minutes from the job. But getting that email, I was nervous. All the confidence I had up to that moment seeped out in a limp sigh. My phone couldn’t load the results fast enough. The large blue NEGATIVE was all I needed to see. I could return home and hug my child and I could lay next to my girlfriend knowing I wasn’t a carrier of a deadly disease that has ravaged not just the United States but the entire world. Staring at my phone and that negative on the screen, my first reaction was to let my girlfriend and close friends who I had been around know it was all good. I didn’t infect them. If they tested positive it surely wasn’t from me and that was the ultimate relief. COVID free. I felt like running around the street mask less, touching everything without fear of infection. That feeling of consolation evaporated as quickly as it had overcame me. I now had to go back to work. Back to a job that hadn’t thought enough of me to tell, and the people that I work with, that we were exposed to a COVID positive co-worker. My life, my family’s life, our safety held no value. The news may call me “essential” and planes may fly overhead in my honor. That’s all fine and dandy. The moniker “essential” is…