I’m sitting at my kitchen table clad in comfortable clothes, sporting what appears to be the start of a salt-and-pepper beard and trying to tell my tale.

For the past few days, I’ve been at home but not on vacation. My luck ran out. I caught (contracted, got, received) COVID-19.

From 2020, when the disease (yes, disease — look up what COVID stands for) began worming its way into the United States, until July 19, 2023, I managed to escape getting the bug, even when my wife and daughter both had it at the same time in 2021. I took the vaccine and a booster, wore masks and sprayed disinfectant all over our home. I used to laugh that I was either one of those folks who was immune or a carrier.

That was until July 19. My saga began when my daughter tested positive for COVID-19 that Monday and I started feeling bad on Tuesday evening. I had a low-grade fever that later hit high-grade and I notified the folks at work. On Wednesday I went to the doctor, where I sat outside in the heat to have my runny nose swabbed. The verdict was, “You’ve got COVID.”

The doctor prescribed several things for me, including the latest miracle drug for COVID-19, which made me feel worse than I did before I began taking it, forcing me to my recliner where I binge-watched “NCIS,” “Chicago Fire” and “Shark Week” on the National Geographic Channel. Those were the best offerings on the tube.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, daytime TV is the pits and the stuff at night ain’t much better. One bright note: I was able to get back to reading and finished one book.

So here I sit on a Thursday morning in the final stages of what I hope is a period of recuperation from my ordeal as I try to get back to normal and worry about my wife, who now has COVID-19.

These past two weeks can be summed up in the line of a song from the old “HeeHaw” television show, “If it weren’t for bad luck I’d have no luck at all.”

But in one respect we have been lucky; we did not have to go through the suffering many people experienced when the disease first made its way across the country. Our experience and those of others who have recently come down with COVID-19 should serve as a warning that it’s still out there and while it may not be as severe, it can still make you feel pretty bad.