At-home STI testing (like TBD at-home STI kits) has made it easier than ever to regularly check your sexual health status for the sake of yourself and your partner(s). It’s amazing to be able to skip hours of waiting at a clinic and complete the process from the privacy of your home instead. The not so awesome part is sitting around and waiting for your test results to show up! To lighten the mood, here are ten incredibly tedious and annoying things that are nevertheless better than waiting for your test results to arrive.

Closing the 300 open browser tabs on your phone. Look, you’re gonna get around to making that vegan brownie recipe one of these days. You really will read that long form essay about the electronic music scene in Bhutan. Just not now. Or ever. There is nothing more excruciating than forcing yourself to click through the dozens of open browser tabs after your phone has crashed for the tenth time this week.

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Sourdough baking. We really thought this sounded like fun during lockdown. But the reality is a whole 24 hour process that will end up in a tough, inedible loaf if you miss a step. All for a loaf of bread, which you could also buy at a bakery for $5.

Sorting through the “doom box” (or bag, or drawer). Remember how you shoved that pile of clutter that was marinating on the dining room into some random empty Amazon box because you had guests coming for dinner? You told yourself you’d sort through it later. That was six weeks ago, and now you can’t find your passport, your vax card, or your favorite necklace.

Trying to meet your soulmate on a dating app. Maybe this is why you’re waiting on STI test results in the first place. It always sounds like it’s going to be so much fun when you download the app. But then you’re numbly swiping past the hundredth polyamorous couple seeking a third, and yet another guy holding up a giant fish. If you finally do match with someone decent, it’s basically guaranteed that they will ghost you.

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Meal prep. On Sunday you spent three hours chopping vegetables with the lofty goal of sticking to “clean” eating all week long. By Wednesday night, you’re sick of chicken breasts and carrot sticks and you’re ready to order a pizza and allow the rest of those perfectly portioned meals to rot in the fridge.

Unsubscribing from email mailing lists. Your inbox is clogged with five times daily messages from that annoying life coach whose sales funnel you fell down, an email blast hyping an eyeshadow palette that looks exactly like 3 others you already own, and duplicate sales emails from your favorite fast fashion brand, because you signed up with a different email every time you placed an order to get that sweet 15% mailing list discount. Now you must manually unsubscribe to all of them if you want to reclaim your inbox.

Deleting the duplicate selfies from your camera roll. You needed to shoot yourself from twenty different angles to get that one perfect photo for the aforementioned dating app profile. But you never bothered deleting the other nineteen less-flattering photos. Now there’s 30,000 photos on your camera roll, and you’re going to have to downsize or end up paying for extra cloud storage to keep up with your selfie addiction.

Listening to your best friend obsess about their toxic relationship for the tenth time this month. DTMFA.

Making a budget. Your Starbucks habit isn’t actually the reason you can’t afford to buy a house, but it probably will make you cringe to realize how much you’ve been spending on dumb stuff on a daily basis, instead of like…saving for an actual vacation.

Laundry. Laundry is the most tedious of household chores because it involves so many steps: sorting through the mystery pile of clothes on your bedroom floor, sniffing your favorite jeans to see if you can get away with wearing them again, accidentally dyeing your white shirts pink, learning the hard way that an expensive dress was dry clean only, wondering how half as many pairs of socks and underwear came out of the dryer as went in, hanging up the three pieces of clothing that are still wet after two dryer cycles to air dry, and lastly, most importantly: waiting a full two weeks to actually put your clothes away. Why hang them up when you can just dig through the hamper instead?

Maybe waiting for STI test results isn’t so bad after all? Nothing beats the sense of reassurance you feel when you know your status, and then you can go back to sorting the collection of jars that you swear you’re going to use for a project someday.

More About the Author Bianca Alba, MPH is a Chicago-based sex educator, coach, and journalist who holds a Masters In Public Health from Indiana University. Bianca created the New York Times’ Wirecutter’s guides to sex toys and condoms, and hosts the sex and dating podcast "Dirty Panties."

This article provides information about sexual health, healthcare and/or related subjects. The blog content and any linked materials herein are not intended to be, and should not be construed as a substitute for, medical or healthcare advice, diagnosis or treatment. Any reader or person with a medical concern should consult with an appropriately-licensed physician or other healthcare provider. This blog is provided purely for informational purposes. The views expressed herein are not sponsored by and do not represent the opinions of TBD Health Inc.