It was a day that started like any other. I woke up at 11 a.m., shared a maskless meal with my friends from across campus over a lukewarm, Glar meal of vegetarian marked meatloaf, and enjoyed my trek through the corridors of Roj Student Center.
It wasn’t until I had gotten back into the confines of my dorm and opened the door of my suave Rouzer single that things took a turn for the worst.
Standing side-by-side were two of McDaniel College’s finest campus safety officers. They exhaled confidently, puffs of air drifting out of masks nestled comfortably below their noses.
As their sharp eyes pierced my Glar nourished soul, dread panged my stomach as I considered what they were there for.
My nasal passages suddenly felt too comfortable, too unprobed, too untwirled by an extended cotton swab. I looked down at my phone quickly. And just as I had feared, it was a Thursday.
I had missed my COVID-19 surveillance test.
My eyes darted from one set of average shoulders to the next, considering my escape. Knowing that shoulder shrugs weren’t in their workout regimen, I knew my odds were good.
I sprinted for the officer on the right (an easy target for addressing centuries of oppression without sincerely contemplating my own role and responsibility as a person with more privilege who has been blissfully ignorant to all that it entails for my societal engagement) before juking him out and flying beneath his subpar shoulder muscle.
Now, out in the hallway of Rouzer, I made my way to the elevator. I frantically hit the button, ‘hurry up and wait’ being my life mantra.
After humming to the soothing sounds of a poorly oiled elevator for 5-10 minutes, what, on another day, would’ve been the difference between an on time and late meal appointment at Glar, I hopped on, resuming my urgency.
Pacing the elevator, I nervously glanced up at the camera stationed in the upper right corner (bottom right corner camera has been removed for what SOME might call obvious reasons), knowing that someone might be recognizing me from a drunken, kinky, Covid safe make out on the elevator weeks prior.
As the doors opened, I broke out in full sprint, blasting through doors and jumping down the row of stairs in the lobby in the cinematic explosion of a lifetime.
Running to Red Square, campo officers joined me left and right, flanking my sides. The world stutter stepped into slow motion, and I looked dramatically from side to side, my in-trend side bangs flipping wildly.
I arrive in Red Square, out of breath and slowly transitioning out of slow motion, to see Wubbzy, of the hit TV show Wow! Wow! Wubbzy! dangling from the bell.
With the strength of a thousand post-apocalyptic-female-teen-lead archetypes, I screamed out to him, my long lost…
I woke up at 11 am. I turned over and grabbed my phone.
An email from the Wellness Center shone up at me from my screen, “COVID-19 Surveillance Testing Program…’ I swiped it away, along with the Campus Clear notification, with no intention to get a test before 4:00 p.m. on Wednesday.
What’s the worst that could happen?
