TALES FROM THE DAYS OF QUARANTINE 2: MY FAVORITE PARANOIA

Worse than the beerus itself (or the economic meltdown that comes hand in hand with its spread) is the paranoia.

COVID19 is a strange bedfellow.  As one of my terminal romantic friends said, the beerus is very much like falling in love in slow burn. Ha? Bakit? Because you may be going around feeling it deep inside without you knowing it ... but spreading the love vibes all over.  At that point, I barfed.  I could not, by any stretch of imagination, equate this lethal invisible enemy into anything that is spewed from Cupid's equally venomous arrow.

OK, let's face it.  We never thought it was going to be this bad.  

If I remember right, sometimes around end of Feb, a doctor friend of mine said, "Oh, this will peak around June or July then peter off in August." Uhm, Doc: mali! August came and now we are hitting the six thousand per day level.  Just when our ASEAN neighbors are counting fingers, we are yielding four digits in terms that only the Department of Health can understand.  

I remember when this was all starting out and I told some people while we were hanging around Starbucks having a chillout time (an activity that has now been relegated to recent history): "All it takes is one motherf---r to enter Manila with the virus and what will follow is virtual chaos and an economic apocalypse.  Imagine mo na lang just one person riding the MRT or LRT with the virus at the height of the rush hour traffic?"  There we go. Nagdilang-anghel nga ako. And now this.

We have turned into such frightened creatures that we do not even want to step out of the house to see another human being not unless he or she is already a familiar in your very controlled little kingdom.

It will only be a matter of days and we would be celebrating six months --- yes, six effing months --- of self-confinement because we do not know what are the possibilities of sniffing that damn virus into our nostrils and lead us to the hellish path of a ventilator.  Can you imagine that?  Half a year --- and in a matter of days I will be hearing Jose Mari Chan singing about Christmas in your heart --- and I do not even know where the great part of 2020 went.

Of course I do know.  I have memorized every nook and cranny of my house, turned into a plantito, considered going to the grocery as a death defying adventure and had grown a natural fear of being near any human being who does not live with me.  I have not seen my family and my closest friends for half a year --- and one day I will not recognize them unless they come in little boxes with talking heads because my social life has been diminished into a scheduled Zoom Meeting.

Oh, but that is not ALL that makes this whole experience unforgettable and somewhat miserable.

It is the fear: the constant fear that if you really f--k it up, you're going to join the cesspool of statistics.  Yeah, the fatalities.  OK, take a moment and make a headcount of how many people you know have already died since last March.  Not nice, 'no?  Then try to listen to all the amazing stories about how someone you know or someone known by someone you know contracted the disease. Ah, that is when it really, really creepy.

Oh, have you heard of the senior citizens and some other members of a family infected by the virus because their household help requested for some days off when the first GCQ was announced to see her family? And when she came back, her pasalubong was the virus that was shared by the entire household?

What about the guy who barely went out of the house and had everything delivered to his home only to catch the virus from either a delivery boy or the package that was handed to him and which he brought into his house?

What about the panic that happened because one of the cashiers and attendants in a supermarket tested positive --- and was blamed for the infection of a great number of residents of an enclave in the burbs?

Or what about the office worker who took a ride in one of these transport vans moving around Manila ... which apparently barely practiced social distancing but which she had to use to get to work?

I can go on and one and each time I hear this, I get more and more paranoid.

And then there is this guy who always stayed inside the house and only went out once to buy a birthday cake for his girlfriend --- and ta-ra-raaan, positive na siya. 

Ah, ewan!

So as a result --- I have graduated from cautious to PARANOID.

For starters, I have been drinking so many immunity boosters so much so that soon I will leap buildings in a single bound and react drastically to Kryptonite.  Every morning and evening, I pump myself up with 1000 mgs of Vitamin C. In the mornings, right after breakfast, my line of defense is to  strengthen my system with zinc, accompany this with Immunomax Forte --- then gulp a handful of vitamins that include D2, B-complex, Vitamin E, etc. 

But that is not all.

The first time I stepped out of the house out of sheer need to go to the bank, I was so terrified with what was once such familiar environment that I was wearing a face mask and face shield that made me look like a character from a George Lucas franchise.  I was so scared that I brought not only Alcogel but also a baby bottle of alcohol, Wet Ones and refused to touch anything with my bare hands.  I entered the bank using my elbows to push open the door, right?

Even at home, it was a requirement that everyone who came from the outside was not allowed to enter the interior of the premises wearing the same clothes sported when exposed to the virus-infested air of the rest of the world.  Clothes had to be immediately removed, thrown to the hamper that was sealed, shoes were never to be brought into the house. 

 That first time I left the house found me undressing in front of very traumatized household help right there in the dirty kitchen because I did not want to bring anything from the outside world into the rest of the residence.  It was not like a virus ... but more of radiation.  The fear was very well marked, embedded and gnawing into your person.

O tapos how many times did I find myself washing my hands each day!  I realized that I am turning completely O-C because I would grab a bar of soap and wash my hands (counting to twenty because that is how long it takes for the soap to kill the virus stuck to your fingers and palm) each time I touch anything that came from the outside world.

I had this crazy feeling that the virus was just waiting for a chance to stick to my fingers ... not unless I keep on scrubbing and creating lather while singing Happy Birthday To You twice (because I read somewhere that singing the song two times covers twenty seconds). So it found it really had to explain to my housekeeper why she caught me once in the kitchen sink literally abusing a bar of Safeguard while singing Happy birthday under my breath.  The look that Yaya gave me ... was one of grave concern.

After being locked up for almost half a year, we have all changed.  And some of my friends have as well.

When GCQ Season 1 was announced, I felt more confident going to my happy places --- which include groceries and the plant stores as Quezon Memorial Circle.  And it was out of my social media-oriented self that I would post photos of "Direk pushing his cart in the middle of S&R"or "Direk waiting in the cashier's line"or "Direk and the Calladiums".  In between the happy reactions to my friends and followers came a deluge from particular close buddies who screamed, "Bakit ka nasa labas? Umuwi ka na!" or worse, "You belong to the endangered category. Go home na."

Endangered. Parang Philippine Eagle? Or tarsier? What am I supposed to do? Stay locked up inside my house until a vaccine is discovered? And considering what they are saying about these minadaling vaccines and the dangers they pose because they are not properly tested, ayoko nga muna.

Hintayin ko muna at tingnan whatever happens to those who will be used as guinea pigs with the Sputnik vaccine before I even dare go near that hypodermic needle. Malay mo tubuan nga ako ng third nipple as a side effect of this experimental drug ... not that it may be a real disadvantage to have that ... uh, extra added feature.

Yes, to a certain extent we have all turned paranoid.

I, for one, am very careful about the direction being taken by my mental health because of this paranoia.

Just the other day, after receiving a package I ordered from Kuya Delivery  I accidentally scratched my nose.

Then I froze.

I had not washed my hand after handling the package and the money to pay Kuya Delivery and I touched my face. I scratched MY NOSE.

The next few minutes was pure panic which involved a cotton ball and alcohol.

And I realized something. Your nasal track was not designed to tolerate ethyl alcohol. But amidst the urge to scream in pain, I felt assured.  

The beerus was certainly annihilated.