Get ready for a spike in Covid waves

The fourth wave and spikes just don’t work for me.

So I try a fifth wave but the light at the boom to my shopping centre stays red and the spikes are still firmly staring at my tyres.

“Try the royal wave,” my friend says. I try – six times my cupped hand stiffly waves at the sensor. No dice. The boom stays put.

“Lean out and stretch.” My friend is getting grumpy.

So I’m hanging out the window, pulling my arm out its socket and wave. And wave. And wave. Nothing but a red light.

The man behind me gives a polite little hoot but I know he’ll be on that hooter just now. Been there, can’t do it.

So I do what I have to do every time I face the wave: I get out of my car and wave frantically inches from the screen.

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And ka-boom, it lifts. An embarrassed wave at the also grumpy man behind me and I scramble back into the car.

“Damn technology, I’m too old for it,” I try to pacify my friend as I spin my wheels before that damn light turns red again.

Her eyes are rolling. She’s only two years younger than me and one of those who coolly flicks a wrist at the screen and gets the green light. I know, I’ve studied Them as we snake closer and closer to The Spikes.

This one casually wiggles four fingers; that one doesn’t even open her window; the men all give one lazy wave staring casually straight ahead.

How I admire their technique, these Masters of the Wave as I wait, dreading my turn at the gate of hell because, heaven knows, I can wiggle all fingers through an open window.

Sesame won’t open for me. What happened to a good old ticket popping out and back in at the press of a button, I wonder aloud.

My friend looks at me in horror. “Don’t you know? It’s Covid,” she shrieks.

“You can’t touch anything. Why do you think I carry a bottle of sanitiser with me? I’m touching no button for no ticket.”

Easy for her to say. She’s one of the Cool Hand Lukes. Give me a spike in a Covid fourth wave any day.