March 5th, 2020. It was a Thursday. I woke up at 5:58 am like I do every work day. I brushed my teeth and went downstairs, poured myself a bowl of cereal, but instead of eating it immediately, I went to let the dogs outside, because I like my cereal a little bit soggy. I prepared my wife’s breakfast smoothie, like I had done over the last two weeks, because she wanted to switch things up from the bacon, egg and cheese English muffins that I’d been making her every morning for the last month prior.
Mythical wife and I left for our respective jobs, and as is always the case, I went straight to the gym first. This was a cardio day, where I spend my entire time running on the treadmill. 6.9 speed, no incline, for 20 minutes, and then I push it over the last five, before giving myself a five minute cool down and then hitting the showers. I always think twice about what I change into after cardio days, because I tend to keep sweating even after a shower after doing cardio.
Afterward, I return my gym bag to my car and head up to the office, as is the norm every single working day. I plop down at my desk and feel the existential dread of the inevitable emails of people pointing out my flaws as a worker or people in other departments making their problems become my problems, and then I contemplate why I stay with this company before realizing how much worse I could have it elsewhere, and then try to think positively about my reports and the people I work with as bright points in an otherwise deteriorating opinion of my job.
But more importantly, I set out to tackle my biggest concern of the day: how to get more 10K eggs in Pokémon Go. I had made a point to use a bunch of incubators to hatch away several 5K eggs, because 5K eggs are like herpes in which you get saddled with them, and there’s no way to get rid of them, except for getting them to hatch. They hog up your limited inventory and prevent you from getting the more coveted 10K eggs. I had cleared up four valuable eggs slots, and wanted to figure out if there were any way to hedge my bets and get 10K eggs in their stead. I searched on the internet and I asked the community on the work’s Slack channel because there are a few hardcore types who work for the company.
Then, I get a text message from mythical wife: she’s going to the hospital. She’s feeling otherwise fine, but she was appearing to be leaking fluid that was in all likelihood not urine.
Uh oh.