Jimmy Buffet & Rebecca were right

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That’s Rebecca in the bright blue coat on the left. I’m the guy in the cap next to her. We’re with a group of Fulbright Scholars in Romania in the fall of 2021. Dwarfing us was Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu’s white elephant Palace of the Parliament in Bucharest. We are at a Fulbright orientation. After this weekend, the group would spread out around Romania.

I taught American Politics at the West University of Timișoara. Rebecca used the Romanian she learned from two years of intensive study on Duolingo to help us maneuver around the beautiful country.

I took this photo the day we arrived in this western Romanian city.

Rebecca weighed a ginger root at Kaufland’s supermarket, a two-mile walk from our apartment. The scale’s directions were in Romanian. She passed her first language test, but it wasn’t easy, particularly with a mask. The N95 fit snugly around her nose and cheeks. Rebecca’s son Jonathan, a nurse practitioner, had smartly sent her a pack of state-of-the-art covers. She was Anthony Fauci’s poster person for proper masking.

Me? Well, this was my sordid story.

The Slow Train to Suceava

On Monday, November 1, 2021, I joined 16,000 others in Romania who tested positive for COVID-19. Romania was smack-dab in the middle of its 4th COVID wave, with 500 deaths every day in this country of 19 million. I felt lousy for a few days, so we went to a Romanian doctor one of my University of West colleagues recommended.

When she texted the positive diagnosis the next day, I was shocked.

How could this be? I’m twice vaccinated and wear a mask. “I know this is somebody’s fault,” whines Jimmy Buffet early in Margaritaville. I thought the same thing. In Romania, where 63% were not vaccinated, blame was easy to find.

I likely got COVID on a train trip from Timișoara to Suceava. But back to Jimmy and his signature song. At first, he agrees with others that a “woman is to blame” for his troubles.

On the Timișoara to Cluj train–the first arrow in the map–a young woman and child minus masks walked by us to their seats. There were also the three maskless male loggers who got on the Cluj to Suceava train–the second arrow–and hung around for a few stops in the aisle about 10 feet from where we sat.

Eventually, Buffet gives up the search for blame, accepts it, and concedes, “It’s my own damn fault.” In the song, his wisdom comes from a therapist. For me, it came from Rebecca.

“You’ve been wearing that cloth mask that doesn’t protect you. And I’ve been telling you that for over a year.”

This was a Margaritaville moment for me. Rebecca had worn the super protective N95 mask that fits snugly for months. Here’s another photo where her face cover fits better than the coat she tried on at Illius Town Shopping Mall.

Yes, I know. She’s protecting herself, me, and others. In contrast, I was sloppy, settling for comfortable cloth covers and letting them slide down my nose. On the slow trains to Suceava, my lame armor was a limp mask halfway down my nose. I felt smug with my two vaccine jabs on the many bathroom trips down the aisles.

You’ve been patiently waiting for this moment. Here’s the default me.

The poster person for how not to wear a mask.

Rebecca was mad

We’d been in Timisoara for a month and had established a routine. We walked two miles to Kaufland’s with our four bags. Then we discovered a Farmer’s Market. That’s Rebecca filling one of our bags with fresh produce.

We made one trip to Kaufland’s and one to the market each week. And we loved our late afternoon happy hours at an outdoor bar in Timișoara’s four beautiful Piatas (squares). Or along the enchanting Bega River. Two reasons why this city was named a European City of Culture in 2023.

Now our outdoor times were on hold for two weeks. And Rebecca would have to lug heavier shopping bags back from Kaufland’s and the market. You get the picture.

Fortunately, our apartment had two bedrooms and two bathrooms. Below is the main bedroom. Look closely, and you can see the top mattress was misshapen.

That’s because we laid two twin mattresses from the other bedroom onto the queen mattress, which was too hard. Below was the additional bedroom sans mattresses.

I know what you are thinking. No, Rebecca didn’t make me sleep on the slats. Nor did he send me to a hotel.

What we did

The Romanian government took COVID seriously. My students told me stories of how the Timișoara police would contact each positive-test person. A squad car would stop by daily, expecting the sick person to wave from the window. So I couldn’t cheat.

My symptoms were fever, fatigue, congestion, and loss of smell. Our apartment refrigerator offered the perfect smell test. We had tried everything to get rid of its odor. I poked my head into it the day I was diagnosed. Nothing. Eerie.

Later that day, I pulled my side’s twin mattress into the spare bedroom for my two week sentence.

Rebecca’s anger was clean, pure, and short-lived. It’s always been that way. At our little dinner table, we sat across from each other that first evening. Six feet apart.

She spoke, and I listened.

The next day, for lunch, she walked to a restaurant she had wanted to try, enjoyed a noon-time glass of wine, and wandered around Timișoara’s city center.

A prepared for my Saturday online classes.

On the 4th day, my fever died. On the 5th, the refrigerator’s sickening smell was back. Wonderful.

Rebecca shopped at Kaufland’s and the farmer’s market lugging home two heavy bags each time.

On the 14th day, we walked through the city center to one of our favorite restaurants.

I kept expecting one of Timișoara’s finest to put her hand on my shoulder.

We each had our N95s snugly around our noses.

And Rebecca never got COVID.

No thanks to me.