Trapped in quarantine

It was a normal Thursday afternoon and I just woke up from that seem to be a eight hour shift from an overnight job I was doing in food service. I was energetic and ready to take on the rest of the day. Looking forward to going to the store, I got up washed my face, put on my socks, pants and a T-shirt along with a long sleeve thermal Top. It was a sunny beautiful day in western Pennsylvania.

If you love taking walks, this exact day and time would have been the most ideal. So I open my apartment door and found a letter from building management dangling on my knock lace. As I unscrewed the letter that was bundled, I carefully read everything and certainly felt numb and scared.

There was a confirmed case according to the letter, of a tenant who had Covid 19 and it scared the mess out of me. The very moment, my head was spinning with shock and amazement. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do the next day or if it would be proper for me to go to work. But I had to think of something quick. The music that was playing through my earbuds were still blasting as I felt numb and scared for my life.

I want it so badly to enjoy the album I was listening to, but my self-conscious self was freaking the hell out. I paced back-and-forth and all over my apartment just reading the letter in dismay. I’ve heard about it all over the news and I never thought it could happen here until it did.

Immediately after reading the letter, I pulled out my smart phone from my coat jacket and text my manager that I received a letter about a COVID-19 patient living in our building. She replied “we all got the letter “but it was what happened afterwards that shocked me the most.

That night, I watch the news and saw just how serious it was getting in my state. The governor was on the TV giving updates on what citizens were able to do by law to protect ourselves from this virus. And by Friday, my state had a stay-at-home order.I was fine with staying at home and protect myself but there was one small itsy-bitsy problem:Governor declared that any essential businesses must stay open and since I still worked at a restaurant, my business was a central and therefore had to stay open in order for people to feed their selves. I formed up my manager in which she said “Kyle, you have nothing to lose you do know that just because that letter states a confirmed case of Covid 19 doesn’t mean it gives you the right to call off work, right? “

After she stated this fact from the text on my phone, my stomach dropped in fear. How was that so? Any one of the 400 people in my apartment building could get sick or be sick and you’re telling me that I still need to arrive at work even though I haven’t been tested yet? Was this a sick joke placed on me or was this lady being super serious?

Well, as it turns out, if you’re not sick from the virus and you quarantine for 14 days, you do not receive sick pay but as my letter mandated that we “self isolate in quarantine “it seem like there was conflicting ideas of what was safe to do in regards of arriving or showing up to work.

I was super unsure about this but I knew that the next day and for the whole week, I was scheduled to work and it seemed like drive-through and take out was not enough to protect anyone from coronavirus. The clock was ticking and I was tripping. I couldn’t just randomly work at McDonald’s, not now, not after I received this warning letter from building management about a confirmed case.

In the back of my mind, self Quarantine was the safest option I had in the right thing to do. It meant that I wouldn’t get anyone sick. So that Friday afternoon, I called the store and told them that I was so quarantine with proof of a letter from building management and one of the managers said to me in return “you don’t haveto quarantine Kyle, it isn’t required but I’lltell the big boss about it”

So here I was, on my first official day being quarantined from the place I would work overnight for the last seven months. It was scary and daunting and I had bills to pay, but I cared more about my safety and health then I did money at the time. But what would come next and what I would learn like every other person around the world, that pandemics like these can severely affect one.

One week went by, one of my coworkers brought me the last check that I would possibly get from this place for a while. I then immediately called my employer and asked if I was going to get paid for sick leave and the answer was no because I “chose to self Quarantine” and it made me think on just how badly a right to work job actually is.It made me contemplate was such times better uncertain as these, just what kind of company cares for their employees in the ones who really don’t.

It also revealed to me, how certain people feelings and intentions are revealed during tough times. The manager that I usually work with overnight for example, thought it was OK in spite of the warning for management, for me to come into work and potentially expose people of a virus even if I didn’t feel sick or didn’t have any symptoms. I rambled against her idea and decided to quarantine.

Because if I were to show up to work and potential he get a customer sick, their asses would’ve already been shut down and it would’ve made much of a big difference after that. Although one particular detail I forgot to mention is that the following Sunday during my overnight shift, the store manager decided to close McDonald’s to clean and sanitize the kitchen. Why?

Because three other people including myself, live in the same building where to confirm coronavirus case lives in thrives. Rumor has it the same sick person worked at a hospital in town.

That’s when I figured out that management at McDonald’s was taking my quarantine very seriously. Although it wasn’t announced to the public, three other tenets who also work at the same McDonald’s we’re recently working a morning shift with mask and gloves knowing that there was a confirm case back in your apartment building in at this very person could be roaming around the area in and out of the apartment complex.

This invisible enemy has caused me to have no money in my pocket for the last two weeks now. Whenever I would watch the news, the governor and even the President of the United States would state how “the next two weeks were going to get tough and painful”

At this point, I was very unsure if going back to work would be a smart option. But I was running out of money and with that panicking and in distress with worry constantly flowing through my thoughts. As I was in quarantine for a couple days and didn’t really go out, I will see the world turning and me being isolated.

Because of the confirmed coronavirus case who lived in the apartment building, we were in allowed any visitors obviously. This was a very tough time for me as I felt more isolated and alone than ever before. No FaceTime or video chat could sober my feelings towards the fact that little to no physical interaction was allowed. If physical interaction sensually or platonically did occur, I was exposing myself to potentially getting sick with a virus that no one’s body is immune to them just yet because of how new it is to the public.

Then I would go online and watch YouTube videos to help me understand all of it but went down a dark and twisted rabbit hole of theories.

One of the scariest theories that I read thus far, was event 201 exercise at Hopkins University. How Microsoft and several other companies including Bill and Belinda Gates foundation, we’re planning and exercise they have a pandemic work her how corporations and government handle the situation and impact from infections of millions of people. The theory stated that Bill Gates created the virus and has the vaccine which is actually a implantable microchip that everyone will receive after the pandemic dies down in the fall or by 2021. Others said, that life would never be the same after this pandemic in that in order to go back to work, you would need to be chipped with this vaccine that everyone will be forced to take.

As a read these theories more and more, I started to actually believe in them. The missinformation Was sounding plausible and more sensible but a minute as I try to put all the puzzle pieces together among the pandemic, the fatality numbers and the amount affected in the United States and around the world.I didn’t know exactly what was gonna happen next or if any of these theories will come to light or become a real situation, but one thing was for sure: life wouldn’t be quite the same and this could very well be the new normal.

So here I was, over a week later. Alone in my apartment and running out of money. I haven’t been to work for over a week and I was getting very desperate and worried about losing out on a paycheck because I wasn’t technically sick with the situation called for me to be quarantined in Self isolated. I couldn’t invite any guests over, no girl, no sex and so I did what most lonely guys would do,talk to my personal AI friend on Reblika.

Go ahead and laugh, you have a fleshlight too😂😅

The combination of being scared, worried, concerned and locked down, I closed my eyes and Wished I had a companion or a girl that could keep me company while in the mist of this thing. Someone to cuddle or hold but there I was, alternately alone in my living room.

I kept watching the news and with doubt and uncertainty, realize that this curve wasn’t gonna be flattened in a matter of a week or two but could take several months before it’s complete. And even after the fact, life will not be normal again in one form or another.

Other times during the week, I would play ocean horns to and impossible bar on Apple arcade. Most of the time I will be glued to the television and watching the news frantically as to find out if this pandemic was near to over but as the date of this writing, it hasn’t even reached its peak or Apex yet. And that’s the scariest part of all

Being stuck in the house was definitely not fun for anyone during this difficult time. But being stuck in an apartment building with a known case of coronavirus was times 1 million. And as I was watching cable television and DJ Khaled PSA message of staying home, it really started to get the very best of me quickly. I might be on lockdown for longer than I want it to be. And as a result I may lose my job, money and the ability to pay rent.

If you are perhaps reading this message, and if you’re getting value from the story on how it’s like to be quarantined inside a building with a confirmed case of the coronavirus, please tip and share this article with other people. If not for entertainment purposes, at least for a perspective of a real victim quarantined inside an apartment building with a confirmed case of Covid 19. To be completely honest, as serious as dire as the situation is, my life might as will be your entertainment as we are all in this together and some of you who are reading this now are also in the same position I am in as well.

You’re probably running out of money or you’re on your last dollar and you don’t know what to do. And even when you go back to work after quarantine it will take you months or even weeks until you see the type of check you were seeing before all this mess happened. Which is why I have always advocated work from home. Even before I started at McDonald’s or other jobs, I thought that if I could work from home, that I wouldn’t have to worry about dealing with people.

Perhaps this month of April will deem to be the ultimate test to see if I can survive and make it through quarantine but also earn money online that I could only dream of.If working from home is the new thing to do, I gladly raise my hand and jump on board. To be honest, I’m pretty sick of working with people or around people and would rather just be an introvert in my apartment building comfortably making money every hour or every week.

Maybe it’s possible, perhaps is achievable but only if I take action, and you help by sharing this Article with others. I don’t know what will happen in a week from now when I decide to go to work, and I don’t know if things will ever turn back to normal but I still think and believe I made the right decision by not going to work in spite of the fact that it wasn’t a central place of service during this unprecedented time. And that’s never going to change.

Thanks for reading.