Having spent months in semi isolation, contact with other people limited to supermarket shopping and the occasional lunch in a near empty restaurant, I thought I'd dodged the COVID test bullet.
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Since the pandemic broke out, I'd watched in horror the images of swabs being pushed into the backs of throats and so far up nostrils they'd have to be tickling brains.
Not for me, I thought.
Perhaps even more of an incentive to follow the guidelines than not catching COVID, the very thought of the test horrified me. I sanitised, social distanced, avoided unnecessary travel, became a virtual hermit and have been that way since March.
Then the head cold caught up with me.
Runny nose. Scratchy throat. Fatigue. Symptoms we've all been told to be on the lookout for. The time had come to confront an irrational fear which had been brewing for months. It was time to get tested.
On the drive to the clinic, sensible me fought with fearful me.
"You need to do this so you don't spread this virus. It's the responsible thing to do," sensible said.
"It's only hayfever or a head cold. You're overreacting. There's still time to turn around, get back into bed and ride it out," fearful replied.
Sensible won the day and I found myself handing over my details at the COVID clinic. There was no turning back.
It doesn't help that in their PPE - the face masks and shields, the plastic gowns and gloves - the people conducting the tests look like abbattoir workers. But that's how serious the contagion is and confronting it in real life helps ram that message home.
It doesn't help either being told, "This is not going to be pleasant."
Watching footage of people being tested, I'd assumed incorrectly that the swabs were taken either from the throat or the nostril. What I discovered was that the tests involved both. Three incursions into the head - throat and both nostrils.
The throat was first and prompted a gag reflex. For a millisecond I thought the poor tester was about to wear last night's pasta. Thankfully not. Then the nostrils as I clutched the steering wheel so hard I thought it would come loose.
And it was done.
Really, the worse part was waiting for the result, which took slightly less than 24 hours. Fear of COVID overtook fear of the test. Happily, the test came back negative.
