One time a long while ago (like a month ago really… life moves a bit slower when you’re always on Xanax) I had a bad day. I woke up with a pretty intense headache and nausea, thinking it was food poisoning or something. Then I remembered that I cooked dinner last night, then I quickly remembered my caliber as a cook and resolved on food poisoning. After getting ready for work with a self Sabotaged body I went outside to leave.

But much to my dismay, my car wouldn’t start that morning. To be honest, working car or not I was already planning on being late to work, ya see, I am what you’d call, a repeat offender of tardiness, I often show up 20 minutes after call time, but my therapist says having a morning routine is healthy so this is mine. However, with how I go about things usually, I just didn’t expect a broken down car to be the outlier to break my routine! I’d always thought it’d be something in my control, like lack of motivation, letting my ADHD lure me into a liquidation store that’s selling expired goods, or a drunk driving accident (depending on the flow of traffic and how fast I chug… Also, part of my morning routine. I.e. my therapist). But none of that was the case!

So then I had to call an Uber to bring me to work. So, as I was making awkward uphill battle small talk with the non- English speaking driver, I noticed my headache and nausea grew worse and worse. I was sneezing and coughing now too. The nausea was to the point where I felt like vomiting and so I did. I patiently waited till he got to about 40mph then politely opened the door and vomitted doing a disservice to the service road. He did not take kindly to this, I don’t know how to say “get the fu** out of my car” in Portuguese, but he sure did. I knew how to read middle fingers though, and those are mostly universal.

So there I was, roadside, about a five minute walk from work, nauseous, without car, and about 45 minutes late for work where I stood. I felt so bad I thought, surely this can’t be JUST the food I cooked. So I figured just to be safe I should purchase a covid test from my local supermarket, and when I went to purchase it I just felt so defeated. I was ready to call out sick and be back home, then as I put the covid test on the desk, I was sneezing and coughing a storm as my headache pounded. And the cashier scanned my item then when I tried to Apple Pay it declined…. Uh oh, this is it, I’m going to kill myself.. this day had just reached peak child star actor levels of depression. I was sick, I was sad and I was broke.

As I was about to put the item back the cashier looked upon me with her gracious fear-filled eyes (I couldn’t see her mouth because she covered it with the other hand since I had kept coughing) and said “just take it.” I said what??? She said “just take it and go! You’ve clearly got SOMETHING” and I know she probably remembers that moment as terrifying and that I could’ve gotten her sick, but I remember the feeling of being seen by her. I remember the feeling of being blinded by brightness of the silver lining that was “Jess” (written on her name tag), being blessed with something free after such a shitty day.

That interaction truly made me feel loved, I know my card declined but it was still love at first swipe, and then later it turned into covid at 5th swab. But that interaction did make me feel warm inside, well.. actually idk if the interaction brought upon the warmth or if it was still that food from the night before but I did in fact throw up again after that in the parking lot and end up having covid. I ended up calling out of work, ubering back home, resting, and thinking about the kindhearted Jess, because even though my car was dead, I knew that empathy for the human condition wasn’t. (Neither was fear of COVID😉)