I went and got my flu shot today.
This was quite a concession to the world on my part, I think, given that I really hate shots of any description. For me to do this voluntarily, without being ordered to do so by authority figures in white lab coats, is just not my standard operating procedure.
Then again, Kim owns a white lab coat. And she was the one who insisted that I get this shot. So perhaps this wasn't all that far removed from the normal run of things after all.
The flu is going around, in any event, and based on what I've heard from friends who've had it, I do not wish to get it. One friend simply called in dead to work - "post my position," she said, "I'm never coming back." This is not a flu to mess with. And it isn't even the swine flu, which has yet to make serious inroads around here although I hear cases have been reported. I'm trying not to think too hard about H1N1, since I can still remember the stories my grandfather told me about the Spanish Flu of 1918, which was the last serious H1N1 epidemic. One crisis at a time - that is one of my many mottoes.
It's no fun being sick when you're not in grade school.
The ideal time to be sick is third or fourth grade, preferably with the kind of cold that makes you cozy and warm and contagious but does not actively make you miserable. Then you get to stay home from school and eat toast and soup and wrap yourself up in blankets and watch inane television shows while your parents hover around taking care of you. I remember doing that a few times, way back when. It was great.
If anything, daytime television shows were even more inane then than they are now, too. At least now there is the Discovery Channel, or the possibility of Law and Order reruns, or - be still my beating heart - even old episodes of Northern Exposure. Back then? Wall to wall soap operas and game shows. I got good at The Price Is Right for a while, and in a sneaky sort of way I do miss Match Game. But if it's a choice between that and Dirty Jobs or Mythbusters, well, no time like the present, I say.
I've learned, over the years, not to watch anything having to do with the actual shot. Right around the time they begin rubbing down my arm with alcohol my eyes slam shut and they stay that way until I am absolutely sure that the needle has been removed, discarded, and at least partially biodegraded. I don't mind the pain - really, they don't hurt all that much until long after you get home, when there isn't anything you can do about it anyway except drink tumblers full of whiskey - but the visuals and the anticipation I can do without.
The shot went well, and I was on my way in a few minutes. So far, so good.
But if I get sick anyway, I'm going to be really annoyed.
Had I known the white lab coat held such power, I would have capitalized MUCH sooner! You'll be sorry you spilled that bean!
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