Jun 26, 2020 3 min read

So I guess I’m a reptile. A snake or a turtle. Or maybe one of those Komodo dragons that have been known to bite off a toe or two. Whatever, I’m a cold-blooded person, and I mean that literally.

My realization came during those jittery, dark first days of the pandemic, when the virus drove us all indoors and deep into the news cycles. I’d sit working on my laptop computer while clicking the remote control between news channels. At first, my compulsion was directed at the stock market reports; my blood pressure would rise as my 401(k) fell. Dizzy from those gyrations, I turned my attention to the medical experts, who offered just enough information to activate whatever hypochondria may have been lying dormant in my brain.

And that’s when I went looking for the thermometer. Of all the changing and emerging symptoms of the coronavirus, fever was the most predictive. Although I rarely left my house during those first weeks, I joined the rest of humanity in concern for my health and the health of my family. The experts didn’t know much about the virus, but they knew about the fevers. And if I didn’t have a fever, I was probably OK for that moment.

Our thermometer is one of those plastic things with the digital display, an inexpensive product purchased in the grocery store drug aisle years ago when one of the kids wasn’t feeling well. When they were small, we’d invested in a more expensive thermometer you just scan across the forehead, but who knows what became of it.

I was left with this small, plastic one, which came to be my boon companion. As the TV anchors tracked new cases, I would track my body temperature, tucking the metal tip under my tongue and waiting for the beep. Often I was too impatient to wait the few minutes and would have a look. As the COVID-19 cases peaked, so did my obsession. There were days I used that thermometer every hour or so.

I never had a fever. Not even close. Officially, a fever begins at 100.4 degrees, and 98.6 is called normal. My average was around 98 degrees, but there were days I was well down into the 97s. I recall a 97.4, which was dipping into gecko territory and has to be some kind of record for a mammal.

Google says human temperatures can fluctuate throughout the day, and that some people are just lower all the time. All my life I’ve had my temperature taken by medical professionals and nobody has ever flagged me, so I’m guessing I’m OK.

More troubling, though, was my fixation. Many of us were hyper-vigilant and worried about the virus, still are, but yikes, that thermometer habit of mine. The long, dark afternoons in March would find me with the TV remote in one hand and the thermometer in the other. Three weeks of that, and I realized I’d finally snapped my cap. It was time to put everything down, turn off the TV and give it a rest.

Life has been better since then, less anxious and quieter in the head. Once I stopped watching the numbers, the stock market settled down and even rose up a bit, not that I can take credit for that.

And my temperature? I still don’t take it very often, but I keep the thermometer on my desk. I used it this morning, even though I’m feeling fine. It was 97.8. As I said, downright snaky.