I had two near-death experiences last week.
The first time, I was innocently visiting my local garage shop, when I was asked to have my temperature taken with one of those new gadgets that they point at your forehead.
The idea is for them to easily pick up one of the telling symptoms of the Coronavirus - a high fever.
If the reading is normal - anywhere between 36.5 and 37.5°C, then of course you are allowed to enter and do your shopping.
Well, the gentleman at the door did his job and smiled broadly under his mask, before turning his device screen for me to see.
I smiled back and mumbled something to echo his apparent satisfaction at my good health.
My reading was 34°C.
It didn’t register with me then, but as I drove away a few minutes later, it hit me that according to that machine, I was at death’s door.
Despite my short-sleeved T-shirt on a pleasantly warm evening, I was clearly suffering a stealthy and mysterious bout of hypothermia.
I wondered whether I should skip my turn-off and instead race to the ER, so I could have me looked at.
But I thought better of it and instead continued home, ignoring my supposedly icy innards.
Two days later, I was driving into a building in town, when I was again asked to offer up my forehead to the device, which this time looked a bit like those “neuralyzers” used by the Men in Black.
I was waved through, after the screen confidently proclaimed that my temperature was 32.5°C.
Apparently the hypothermia had made a vicious return and I was now thoroughly dead, something which didn’t seem to bother the security guard in the least.
I joke, but it’s actually quite serious, because the problem is an obvious one.
If those machines are giving wrong readings, then people infected with Covid-19 could be unwittingly let into the stores to spread the virus, the very thing the tests are meant to prevent.
Not that it would matter, because according to the thermometer, everyone else is already a zombie.
I know we are not fans of reading the manuals of our devices, but in this case, an exception needs to be made.
If you purchased a thermometer to be used at your business entrance, please look inside the box for the manual containing proper usage instructions.
Because if you don’t get it right, then we risk being forcibly subjected to rectal thermometers.
And I think we can all agree that we have been through enough crap.
Or as my mates on the Cape Flats would so eloquently put it that, my dear friends, is a k@k gedagte.