Testing Times

That's quite the cough you got there?

My brother-in-law Stiff-Bottom remarked. We called him Stiff-Bottom because of his rampant homophobia that made him visibly clench his buttocks in terror at the merest hint of gayness in his surroundings.

As part of the last leg of our tour of Scotland, we had stopped in Dundee, home of the Good Lady's family and also where haircuts go to die.

I lifted something that looked like a sausage roll and added it to the selection of processed carbs and meat paste shapes that were already on my paper plate.

The table before me was festooned with so many forms of processed meat in pastry that it looked like an obese person had sharted in a bakers.

Just clearing my throat, bit of hayfever I think.

I nodded to Stiff-Bottom with a reassuring smile as if he were a leper and I were a roll of duct tape.

You sure, you look a little peaky?

Stiff-Bottom narrowed his eyes at me suspiciously before helping himself to something that was pretending to be sausagey from the table before us.

I look fucking magnificent you mean.

I turned away from the Dundonian fiend to make my way back to the rest of the family.

Did you do a test before you came?

The words hung coldly in the air like Anthony Bourdain on a crisp Parisian morning.

A test? Like, what kind of test? Math?

I barked in a rolling-eyed annoyance.

Math, haha. No, I mean a lateral flow test. You know, for Covid?

Stiff-Bottom said earnestly, waggling something triangular and flaky in my direction like a walrus with eczema.

Huh? Covid? What is this, 2022? Covid isn't a thing anymore, nobody tests for it.

I stuck one of their shit pastries in my mouth and chewed it enthusiastically in what I hoped was a contemptuous way.

You haven't tested?

Stiff-Bottom squawked indignantly as if I had professed to having a poster of Nicki Minaj in my attic.

Nope. Covid's done, kaput. We don't need to test.

Hmm, that seems a little irresponsible, does it not? Especially you having a cough and all?

Some other in-law of an in-law who had a face like a rabbit's beard piped up loftily from the comfortable heights of a stool in the adjoining kitchen.

I think having six of those fucking quorn scotch eggs on your plate is a little irresponsible but hey ho.

Rabbit-Beard frowned down at his pile of fake meat-wrapped eggs.

I waltzed past him into the garden stifling a little cough as I went.

The Good Lady sidled over to me as I took a chair.

God, everyone has taken a test, it is all they are talking about. I am starting to feel a little guilty that we didn't.

She looked flustered and this made my dander boil at the covid posturing of her immediate family, it was always the same with peasants from the country. Staring at the sky and muttering about thunder gods when aeroplanes flew overhead and screeching about CERN creating black holes.

Never you mind them, lass. Bloody fannies the lot of them.

I know but I feel bad, perhaps we should test when we get home just to make sure, after all, you do have a little bit of a cough?

I don't have a fucking cough but aye, ok. We will do tests when we get home.

I shook my head at all this testing nonsense. Is this what we have become?

---

Later at home, with much grumbling and protesting, I joined the family in a jolly old group test session.

Clear!

Shouted the Good Lady victoriously as she looked at her and the kids' results.

Told you. There was no need for this paranoid testing malarkey.

I cried.

Then I looked at my own test.

Bugger.