May 23rd, 2026Kyle’s Rant

In life there are a couple of things that give me the shits and this is just the place to air them out and create conversations around nitwits and head- scratching situations.

But lately there are a couple of things that have boiled to the surface of my universe that have given me a rash-style reaction. A fair-dinkum twitch and itch that turns into a rash and is quelled by an antihistamine. These were recently reignited by hantavirus cruise ship – oh no, here we go again…
It got me reflecting on how much Covid still affects me and how many bad memories I still harbour because of that time in our lives that we were locked down, locked out and locked in. The time when if a pig had have flown past the window, I would have bid him a good day.
There are a number of songs on my Spotify I can no longer listen to including the one that talks about riding shotgun underneath the hot sun, and quite a few more which I listened to every afternoon going around and around the Glenlyon Reserve.
Which brings me to another point, I can’t bring myself to walk around the reserve anymore – I have swapped it for Lake Daylesford. I can’t drive down there even though it is less than a kilometre away as it is the place that I shot all my Covid photos for The Local. It was actually the perfect outdoor studio with light, shade, cover from the rain, plenty of windbreaks and a plethora of different backdrops. But I can no longer face the joint.
I also can’t bring myself to watch some old favorite TV shows like Midnight Diner, a show that focuses on a late night diner in the Shinjuku district of Tokyo, with its mysterious chef known only as “Master,” and the lives of his customers.
Donna and I binged the absolute bejesus out of it and I only have to hear the intro to start running to the spare room and switch on the other TV.
Meals I can no longer enjoy are just homemade ones. I can eat them out every day of the week, but I just can’t bear to cook them at home again. They include ramen, crispy-skin barramundi and veggies, and some pasta dishes.
I just got so caught up in the whole isolation thing, we didn’t eat out in over a year with the exception of a lockdown feed at a local pub that turned out to be not worth it in terms of fear, and the food that wasn’t all that crash hot for the price.
On the subject of food, one time in the early days of the pandemic I bought a hamburger from McDonalds. I undid the paper so the burger rolled out and dropped onto the tonneau of the ute, then discarded the paper and sanitised my hands. I then ate the morsel without the use of my lips, just my teeth so any bugs transferred would go straight down and be dealt with by the acid in my gut – once again an experience that wasn’t worth the fear.
The final thing that still gets me reaching for the sanitiser, which I carry in both of the front doors of our cars along with a piggy prodder for any road rage incident that comes my way is handshaking. I can’t bear to shake someone’s hand without holding my own like it has been dipped in acid, until I can apply the magic healing sanitiser.
So, let’s hope nothing comes from this latest rodent virus. FFS first it was bats now rats, what’s next, cats? Virus rant over…