A rumor went around recently that I had died. At first I thought, “Why hadn’t anyone contacted me to ask?” but then I realized how silly it would be to call a dead person and inquire if he is dead.

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I learned yesterday that I am not dead. This was not news to me, as my Sunday morning activities carried most of the evidence of a living human life as lived by me: I was frustrated once again by one of my local coffeeshops.

A question/rant before I continue: Is the overfilling of take-out coffee orders something local to where I reside, or is this a new practice at coffeeshops everywhere?

Some months ago I noticed that at the moment the large or venti paper coffee cup is placed gently in my hand by a genial server and I turn around to leave the counter area, this minimal movement of my body converts the venti into a grande as the scalding hot coffee douses my hand through the hole in the plastic lid—even with a plastic stopper installed by the genial server. This started to happen to me (or for me, to make something positive out of it) at multiple coffeeshops here and in other local cities last autumn. Coffeeshops have started to fill cups close to the top and then add cream to bring the whole thing to the top. Last week, I inaugurated a new practice: I would ask with my out-loud voice if the server would please not overfill or would please dump out some of the coffee rather than fill it to the rim. For non-scientific purposes, I report to you that this has worked one out of two times so far, and yesterday was not that time.

I knew I was alive because my hand was scalded and smelled like a medium roast, but I did not know that I am not dead until I was told.

An hour later, an acquaintance who follows me on social media saw me in-person for the first time in a few months and declared with audible exclamation points that he was very happy to see me, as he had heard that I had died a while back. This struck me as odd because I am not dead, and I have not moved away or gone anywhere, not even on a vacation.

I was instantly given the gift of a more interesting life now that it had ended. A second friend confirmed later that a rumor had gone around recently that I had died. At first I thought, “Why hadn’t anyone contacted me to ask?” but then I realized how silly it would be to call a dead person and inquire if he is dead. I suppose all of us should be told with some regularity that people are happy to see us alive; I’ll try this at the coffeeshop tomorrow. Maybe my hand will remain unscalded.

I figured out what inspired the confusion. Last summer, a person with the same first name as me died, and while it is not true that this is such a small town that when one individual named “Mark” dies the rest of us named Mark receive a cellphone alert that each of us has moved up one position, it can seem that way. (I’m number four.)

It was weirdly appropriate to learn that I’m among the not-dead this week, as 2024 has stutter-stepped its way from day one for me. I contracted Covid the first weekend in January, and then served as a grand juror for all of March and April.

At a social gathering in January, I overheard one person say as he grabbed a slice of pizza: “I tested positive for Covid yesterday and negative today, but I haven’t felt sick at all.” I thought to myself, “This will not be good.” I stayed away from that individual and the pizza. Thirty hours later, I felt dramatically unwell, and I decided to take a Covid test. The two colors burst with a neon brightness long before the ten-fifteen minutes on the test timer had expired. It was my first positive Covid test, my first personal experience with Covid in this entire four-year nightmare.

As my father died of Covid in May 2020, I felt many emotions about the fact of my first Covid. In addition, my mom and sister were sick with it hundreds of miles away from me at the same time. Two friends, one a fellow member of the Covid bereaved community and the other a dear friend, asked about my emotions because of the loss. That meant a lot to me.

On day one, I was sleepless and hot and the water stream from my not-hot and non-strong shower felt like lava pebbles thrown by a thousand catapults per second. Days two and three, each joint in my body hurt; none so severely that I needed to pursue a solution, but overall, my entire body ached. Ibuprofen and general tiredness allowed me to sleep pain-free. Two friends dropped off food and medicine and bottles of electrolyte drinks outside my door.

Day four, I noticed that the generalized body ache had lifted but that I could no longer taste or smell anything. It was like one part of my nervous system handed off a baton to a different part in a relay race of symptoms. Because this is one of the most common symptoms that Covid sufferers mention, when I noticed that I had this particular issue it brought home to me that I really was sick with Covid, even more than the first positive test had. The absence of sensation is one of the oddest of sensations; even my slightly paralyzed legs have enough sensation that I can choose to not notice any absences. This was a first for me. I had to force myself to eat, and I was glad one friend had dropped off Mexican frozen dinners for me to microwave. The slight spiciness helped. The same friend took a grocery order from me, and I asked her to get me cans of soup: “I have soup here, but they are all ‘chunky’ and whenever I look at one to heat it up, it looks too complicated. Please get a bunch of cans of old-fashioned Warhol-brand chicken soup with rice.” I needed comfort food from childhood.

From then on, it was exhaustion. Some days I would get up around noon, clean up, eat something, think to myself, “This was a full day,” and start to change into my pajamas. The “full day” usually lasted around a whopping three hours. For a lifelong insomniac like me, Covid felt like a permanent cure for my history of sleeplessness.

The second week, another positive test. I started to read something, and English felt like a second language. What remained of my cognitive abilities grew afraid. “Do I have a case of ‘long Covid’ while I still have a case of classic Covid?” I went to bed.

None of this is connected to the acquaintance who thought I had died, as he wouldn’t have known I had had Covid and stayed in my apartment for two weeks in January. I spent February in a state of Covid recovery micromanagement. Everything I read always had an extra thought running alongside it: “Do I understand this? Y/N? If no, is this a long Covid symptom? If yes, am I really, REALLY sure I actually understand it?” Thus, the answer was always NO. With that continuous extra thought, I understood nothing I read and almost none of the conversations in which I was a participant for, well, February. I hope I did not agree to do anything that I no longer remember. My brain seems to have returned to me in the months since.

And then I was summoned for grand jury duty, which will be a future post.

My 2024 did not start until May 1, 2024, but I have always been a little slower than most people, and at least I learned yesterday that I am not only alive but also not dead.

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Mark Aldrich is a blogger for Yokel Enterprises, an award-winning humor columnist, and a writer/performer with the Magnificent Glass Pelican radio comedy improv group, which just completed its thirty-fourth season:

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