Laughing & Spitting

Yes, laughing and spitting. It was a sunny day in beautiful Park City, Utah. And Mr. Parker and I found ourselves sitting in our car in a hospital parking lot, spitting into tubes and laughing.
 
What has brought us to this bizarre circumstance? Two words: COVID testing.
 
 
We’d made it almost a year into the pandemic without needing a test.
 
That’s saying something, considering we were actually in ground-zero Seattle on March 11 2020.
 
These days, we rarely leave home. We go almost nowhere…and the liquor store. Our COVID pod is small and select.
 
But people we like were about to enter that pod from out of town, and everyone was getting tested first. We were doing our part. Hello, testing!
 
 
Until now, I’d thought that a COVID test meant a long swab up your nose and into the back of your brain.
 
That thought alone was enough to keep me from going anywhere or engaging in mask-less mingling.
 
But there’s a new kid in town: the spit tube.
 
 
Sorry if this creeps you out , but…
 
All you have to do is juice up enough saliva that you can spit three milliliters of it into a plastic vial. Then, drive up to the spit take service entrance where you hand it to the nice lady in the hazmat suit.
 
 
Simple. Painless. No one touching your precious gray matter.
 
Let’s do this.
 
It was a bluebird day as we drove to the hospital and pulled up to a temporary office hut that looked like it might be possible to purchase coffee from the gentleman inside.
 
When that smiling gentleman leaned out the hut window, Mr. Parker placed his order.
 
 
“COVID tests for two, please.”
 
“Spit or swab?”
 
Not even a question. “Spit, please!”
 
The gentleman then informed us that this test is not acceptable for travel to Hawaii. Have you ever said to yourself, “Thank god I’m not going to Hawaii?” Yes, it was a first for us, too.
 
 
He handed us our plastic tubes, told us to where to park, and showed us how much spit we needed to produce.
 
“Get to the line marked 3. If there’s a head on the spit, then the bubbles need to reach the number 4.”
 
I’ve been spitting for longer than I can remember. I got this.  
 
 
Surprise. It’s a long, involved exercise in purposeful hypersalivation.
 
(Mr. Parker found that word for us. He’s like that. I was happy to stick with “working up spit.”)
 
We pulled into a space, parked, and started spitting. How hard could this be? How long could it take?
 
Answers: hard and long. (Yes, I said hard…and long.) My spit dried up in a matter of minutes. Mr. Parker quickly gained quite a lead on me.
 
 
Should one put on music for such an exercise? What would be appropriate?
 
As it turned out, there was no need for a soundtrack. The longer it took to fill the vials, the more we laughed. And laughing lead to more laughing. The kind of laughing that takes over when you’re watching a good, bad movie.
 
My vial was all bubbles. Mr. Parker, overachiever that he is, had already made it to line five. Five! Damn. That’s when I gave us our new temporary rapper names: Juicy and Li’l Bubbles.
 
 
Finally, I crossed the finish line.
 
We called the phone number for spit retrieval, and as per instructions, we drove to the hospital side entrance.
 
A nice lady in a bizarrely enormous hazmat suit came out. Kinda like if the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man’s very happy wife showed up, dressed for surgery.  
 
 
She bounced out the door and smiled big as she confirmed out birthdates.
 
We held out our juice and bubbles. She held out plastic bags. We dropped the vials inside. She smiled again from inside the big plastic fish bowl on her head. “Have a nice day! Stay safe!”
 
 
And, just like that, the adventure was over.
 
In truth, figuring out how to get the results from the website was another adventure. And no laugh track.
 
Drum roll…Negative and negative!
 
Rim shot!
 
Oh, the adventures of pandemic-living. Here’s hoping you don’t have to go to Hawaii any time soon.
 
Stay Careful-ish,
Juicy & Li’l Bubbles