How I Ruined Everything (and Other Stories That Aren't Really About Coronavirus)
I know you think that COVID-19 started in China, but you’re wrong. It started when I texted my credit card number to a stranger. Up until then, people in Wuhan were locked in their houses, and you couldn’t fly to or from China, but life was mostly normal for you and me. But then I sent some guy I don’t know a text that said, “Here’s my CC info,” followed by my actual credit card info. It’s just sort of gone downhill since then. I’m sorry I ruined everything.
Grandpa and me (August 1998)
I was in Senegal the last week of February on a work trip and I had to change my flight to go home a couple days later than I’d planned. I was on the phone with Nabeel, the travel guy at the embassy. There weren’t a lot of options and he had the best one reserved, but I’d mulled things over all day and now the reservation was going to expire in 10 minutes.
“Text me your credit card info and I’ll book the ticket,” Nabeel said. “OK,” I said, because I was in Africa on a cell network, how could this turn out bad. Nabeel gave me his cell number. I put it in my phone, then I texted Nabeel my info. Nabeel called me back five minutes later. “Aren’t you going to send me the info? I can’t book the tickets without it.” I scrunched my eyebrows together. “I sent it five minutes ago.” Nabeel read off his phone number to me again. When I had entered it into my phone, I’d been one number off. “Dang.” That’s what I said.
I texted back the random guy to whom I’d sent my credit card info five minutes earlier. “Sorry, wrong number, please disregard,” I wrote. My phone pinged thirty seconds later. “Don’t worry bro,” is what he actually texted, “It’s all good.” No. It is NOT all good, bro. Because not only do you have my credit card information, but somehow this text conversation also triggered a global pandemic.
Things stayed awesome. Nabeel booked my updated flight from Dakar to Dubai for March 1.
But — wait for it — I forgot it’s a leap year. So on February 29 I thought it was March 1. What did I do? I checked out of my hotel, turned in my loaner local cell phone to ensure communication within Senegal would be extra hard for me, took a taxi an hour and a half out into the desert to the dinky international airport, walked into the oddly empty terminal, stepped up to the counter, and said I was there to check in for my 6 pm flight to Dubai. The guy looked confused. “There’s no flight to Dubai today,” he said. “But there’s one tomorrow at 6 pm.”
I got that feeling you get right after you hit reply all on an email that most assuredly was not intended for All. “What day is it?” I asked the guy at the counter. “February 29,” he answered. “Dang.” That’s what I said.
After convincing some armed security guards in cool French berets to call a taxi for me, I rode back to Dakar and begged for my hotel room back. Fortune smiled on me and I got a room with six mosquitoes in it. I killed the last one at 4:30 am.
Later, in May, my grandpa’s 97 year-old body decided enough is enough, it started to close up shop, turn off the lights one by one. I was in the States on a twist of fate, temporarily evacuated from Abu Dhabi, a few hours from Grandpa. I’m always somewhere else when these things happen, far away, useless where it actually matters. Coronavirus brought me home though this time. That may be the only thing it did right.
I drove to see Grandpa a few days before he died. He was not the Grandpa from when I was young. But he was still Grandpa. His white hair was wispy and long, he was thinner, his eyes a little deeper in their sockets. I don’t think he knew exactly who I was, but he knew I was someone he loves. That was good enough for me.
So Grandpa and I just sat together. There was nothing I could or needed to fix, I just needed to be there, present. Where you are in the world can mean everything in the world. When I rested my hand on his shoulder and I told Grandpa I love him, I was unexpectedly overcome by how fiercely I meant it. The soul can push the rest of you aside like that sometimes to say what it needs to say. Grandpa’s glassy eyes met mine and he told me he loves me too. I have never believed anything more completely.
A muted TV on the wall silently shouted about how everything is wrong everywhere all the time. That message suddenly seemed so small and pathetic, so trite, empty, meaningless. I turned away from it and I knelt beside his chair, buried my face in his old neck, and hugged Grandpa for a long time.
