by Rachel Griffin and Stacie Hanson
Thank you for visiting Midtown Medical Practice. Our medical providers are obviously very busy during this unprecedented time. Before wasting their valuable time, we are asking women of a certain age to review this checklist to determine if your symptoms may be unrelated to COVID-19. If one or more of these statements is true for you, please go home, self-medicate, and continue to suffer in silence.
| True | False | Fever. You’ve locked the children out of your bedroom and are watching Bridgerton under your weighted blanket. |
| True | False | Headaches. Your child’s music teacher sent home a recorder in the remote learning package. |
| True | False | Congestion. You had a cathartic cry in the Starbucks drive-thru lane during your first “alone time” in 10 months. |
| True | False | Shortness of Breath. You are still wearing last year’s bra from before the quarantine pounds. Also, you are still watching Bridgerton. |
| True | False | Loss of smell. The odor emanating from your child’s room has left you nose-blind. |
| True | False | Loss of taste. You’ve resorted to making Totino’s pizza rolls every night after enduring too many “suggestions” from your family. |
| True | False | Muscle aches. You are stuck in Pigeon pose after deciding to join your kids in their YouTube yoga class for virtual PE. |
| True | False | Sneezing. You gave in to your children’s pleas for a quarantine kitten and OMG, there is cat hair on every surface there could be cat hair. |
| True | False | Coughing. In a fit of nostalgia for that time in the 90’s when you were young and carefree and your life stretched before you full of purpose and meaning, you smoked a pack of clove cigarettes. |
| True | False | Sore Throat. You have been scream-singing the 4 Non Blondes classic Gen-X ballad “What’s Going On?” at the top of your lungs for weeks. |
| True | False | Fatigue. Well, you’re a mom. Is it necessary to list all the myriad reasons you might be tired? |
| True | False | Malaise. Crushing existential anxiety. |
Little Old Lady Comedy 