If we'd said that in 2020, we'd either be heading to a pet store or have a strange desire for a rodent infestation. But households across New Zealand have been uttering this very sentence on a near-daily basis,as the school year chugs on and the kids pick up the winter ills, if not a spot of the Covid.
We were fortunate to get precisely five tests as the house came down with sneezes. I think it was a certain cold medication that used to tell us to "Soldier on" but a more apt turn of phrase for this day and age would be "Hit the trenches and hunker down" or perhaps "Rest up with a rat".
Now having been through two years of global pandemic news reports, and exactly one PCR test myself in the past, I was very familiar with the brain-tickling reach of a PCR swab. Putting on my best nurse face I opened the RAT box full expecting that I was going to have to cause the small people of my house at best a bit of discomfort, and at worst, a full temper tantrum setting, eye watering, sneeze fest that they may never forgive me for.
"It'll be fiiiine" I said externally "This will be hell" my internal voice replied. But then, a shining beacon of relief, because after the instructions to clean everything (Your hands, the kids hands, the bench, the house, the yard and nearly the whole street) came the directions for swab placement. Expecting "Insert to the depths of the skull" I read on, only to be greeted with "Insert just inside the nostril and swirl five times making good contact with the inside of the nose. Repeat with the other nostril"
"I won't even have to bribe with lollipops," I thought to myself, saving myself the awkward phone call if we DID have Covid to anyone who could immediately bring me a lollipop and drop it with a contactless lollipop delivery.
I called the child over, and after re-reading the instruction was even comfortable enough to let her do one nostril herself. Round we went, the five swirl swizzle and into the liquid and dish for a result. We'd dodged it this time, all clear. The moral of the story is, don't be scared of rats, your brain is safe from a tickle! (There's another sentence I never would have said in 2020) Good luck and get well soon to those in isolation this week!
