Covid-19 and Deceased Pharaohs

I have an all new respect and empathy for dead pharaohs. The last few days have seen me flat on my back in bed, horrid cold, head full of concrete, sinus and throat trying to turn me inside out via the medium of snot, usual story. Just to be on the safe side, I also bit the bullet and got a Covid test.

Holy shit. You may be aware that a component of the ancient Egyptian mummy embalming process was to remove the brain by shoving a dagger up the client’s nostrils, then waggle the blade around until their brain becomes bite-sized chunks, easily removable.

Whoever designed New Zealand’s Covid tests must have been a mummy embalmer in a past life. The staff at Kapiti’s testing centre attached a cotton wool bud to a knight’s lance, or a pylon, or possibly the Burj Khalifa, then shoved it up and into my sinuses and strip-mined its interior for infinity seconds.

Genuinely the most unpleasant experience I’ve had this year. Granted, I’m fairly sure my pre-existing sickness inflamed my sinuses and turned my nasal cavity’s interior into the equivalent of the flaring hoods of venom-spitting lizards.

Remember that scene in Jurassic Park where that venom-spitter dinosaur killed Dennis Nedry?

My sinuses had been hocking and gobbing backwards, down my throat, in exactly that fashion, for the prior week. Argh. And then a Covid medic shoved a cotton bud into its innards. Argh again. Obviously it’d kick off a heroically awful tantrum.