COVID cringe memories (light hearted)

[Floogal]

Looking back at the pandemic, especially at its height in 2020, what made your toes curl?

1. "Imagine". Enough said.
2. The Marsh family.
3. On the local news, footage was shown of the Thursday clap (may or June). There was a parade of bhangra drummers and smarmy bratty kids doing the irritating floss dance. Was that point the 'applause' was seen as having had it's day.

I know some people may mention the dancing nurses, I only saw tiny clips on the news. Even that made me cringe.

The scaremongering. We didn’t watch the news for months.

As someone with asthma I was always paranoid about coughing in public just in case someone thought I had covid!

I can almost guess which 2 running groups you're talking about. I was most definitely told not to post my runs (10miles) in one group, that up until that point had been a source of support for female runners. Then I was invited to a new group (think it was started after some of us were berated for going out for more than an hour). Still a member of both groups but only really post in the 2nd

Also the local town facebook page where people were photographing people walking to local wood someone was hiding in the bushes with a camera and saying that people were driving there absolutely bonkers 😂😂😂

Having to drive to a PCR testing centre (car park behind Asda) to be clandestinely passed a testing kit through 1cm of open window as if we were doing a drug deal. Then having to park up and get on my knees on the front seat, lean over the back of it, pin down my 1 year old baby’s arms and shove a sharp, pointy stick up each nostril for 10seconds at a time whilst they screamed and cried in terror. Asking the test centre staff member on one occasion if I could get out of the car and open the back passenger door to do it instead of this ridiculous contortion act, and them reacting in sheer horror as if I’d just asked if I could lick their face.

Having to repeat the above routine TWELVE TIMES (although it could be more, I honestly lost count) because DC had coughed twice in nursery and they wouldn’t let them back in until they had a negative test.

The test was always negative. DC has since been diagnosed with asthma that manifests as a persistent cough, so it’s no wonder we had to do so many.

I’ll never forget how horrendous each test was. It was even worse when they started recognising the route to the Asda car park and shoving fingers up their nostrils and crying as they knew what was coming.

Never again.

Same. One of the best pandemic decisions I made.

A very noisy Karen neighbour, kept shouting on people who did not clap each week. Everyone was scared of her, she said we will get reported.

What made me cringe were the people who did their own 'research' and decided it was all a conspiracy, that vaccines were implanting microchips and that it was all caused by 5G, they refused to wear masks and refused to have a shred of empathy for the clinically vulnerable or anyone else who had good reason to be fearful.

The things we did, that with hindsight yes do sometimes seem a bit over the top, we did them because we wanted to protect others and ourselves from an unknown virus. I have no regrets, I wasn't too batshit anyway but I followed most of the rules and would do so again if the science suggested I should. Once the vaccines came out and the milder variants appeared I went back to normal, this seems proportionate to me! I'm surprised so many people now think everything we did was so cringeworthy, it made sense at the time!

Going past the local play park and it was all taped off with police tape with warning signs saying there was cctv on at all times.

People parking on the pavements all the way up the roads leading to Richmond park when they closed it to cars so cars could not get through and people had to walk on the road.

Also joggers running on the road so they didn't have to go past people on the pavement. Some people still do this!

Now that it's effectively "over" (I know it never will be but you know what I mean), it's easy to forget how frightening it was when we didn't know what we were dealing with, didn't know how it would pan out, didn't know how long it would last or how it would mutate and so on.

Absolutely.

My heart used to sink at the words ‘new normal’
I found that going on MN board, made my anxiety go into overdrive with all the doom
mongering. It used to make me feel worse, but I couldn’t stay away. The implication from some posters was that this was how life was going to be forever.
Remember big sainsburys stores (think that was just wales tbf) taping off sections so you couldn’t buy certain things? Mainly clothes? Insane.

What? Reported to whom?? Does she think we living in a communist state or something ?

We went on a short break with family in September 2020 and we invited them over to our caravan for food. We tried ordering takeaway form the campsite restaurant and were refused as ordered more then 6 meals. Got a telling off.
Also got a telling off from a pub landlord for speaking across the table to our family.
We weren't allowed to even associate with our own family 🙄

Also meant to say, thank goodness for my kitties! As a single lady, they really got me through lockdown and kept me sane.
I do have an autistic adult son who lives in supported living. I used to worry about him all the time. I was so confusing for him.

I remember on a local Facebook group an argument about whether Easter Eggs were essential and stores should not be selling them.

I remember feeling like a criminal for driving to a forest near me to go for a run. On my own, in a forest with only the odd dog walker, cyclist or fellow runner to bump into. Everyone was lovely and friendly made a change from the streets where people hid in gateways or hedges in case you walked past them.

Didn’t if get suggested on here that the army should be patrolling the streets & threatening people with firearms if they were breaking the ‘rules’ or did I imagine that?!

Lol how big did they think our army is?!

Yup....and always just as my daughter was falling asleep too 😭 we did the first clap, and then didn't bother after that, so I imagine we were slagged off on the local facey page 😂

People aggressively reminding you of the 'rules' that didn't even exist, my husband worked as normal, and I was at the end of my maternity leave - so I had to take my daughter, who was under 1 at the time shopping with me once and I got shouted at 😢 I was suffering with quite severe post natal depression at the time, and I didn't dare take her with me after that.

At our workplace having to spray the (hard plastic) seats in the staff room - really a massive draughty hall with all the windows open. Fed up of the arse of my good trousers getting soaked with some antibacterial spray.

Oh you've just reminded me - in my mother's local church (Ireland), when they finally reopened for general Mass-goers, as opposed to having to book a place to be one of 50 attendees, so well into the latter parts of Covid, they invested in a spray that a guy wore on his back & they liberally sprayed all the seats, some kind of anti-bac stuff. Like they were spraying crops.

It was the stickiest substance - destroyed the seats & everyone's clothes were glued to it. I was only there making my mother happy & it drove me nuts!

On a related note, still Ireland, my mother got mad into the live-streamed Masses. She'd watch many various Masses streamed from loads of churches around the country (including my own local one, more than I did). She was thrilled to be able to watch so many funerals too, often had one on in the background while she pottered around. You'd hear the occasional 'And also with you' from her.

The toilet paper panic

But it didn't make sense. I was worried back in December 2019 when the media released footage of people piling up in the wuhan hospitals and doctors dropping to the floor convulsing. It was like something out of a movie.
Then our government told us not to wear masks that they wouldn't work, then they said it's a mild illness. Then when it suited them they ramped it up.
I knew it was manmade and those Chinese videos were all part of the propaganda machine.
It was made to deliberately harm us both physically and mentally. I don't trust any government as far as i can throw them.

Remember big sainsburys stores (think that was just wales tbf) taping off sections so you couldn’t buy certain things? Mainly clothes? Insane.

I forgot that. That happened in our grocery stores here in Ireland. They could sell some children's essentials, but got into a lot of trouble when they chanced some adult t-shirts & socks!

@Summerdayy

Please don't use 'Karen' to make a point about another woman - it's offensive & misogynistic.

Texting my friend to tell her I had left her birthday card and present in a bag at the bottom of her garden.

This was my parents take and they're not even "elderly". My mum was like am I fuck sitting in my house until I die