Vaccine

Yesterday morning Joyce drove me over to a nearby CVS to get the Pfizer booster for Covid. I had registered online and had an appointment time, so I wasn’t too worried.

The site was busy but not overflowing and very well-organized.

Entering right behind us was an older couple and their daughter (this I learned a bit later). I was on a walker; he wasn’t.

Although I was inside first, they took an alternate route to the back, presumably accelerated, and reached the check-in area ahead of me. Did I detect a slight smile on their faces as they got in line.

I was ticked. I would not have done that.

They started filling out paperwork, and I needed to sit down. My dizziness is no joke.

I’ve been getting vaccines my whole life—and booster shots. I remember how excited we all were when the Salk polio vaccine arrived: That disease had been the terror of my boyhood. (Later, I remember the Sabin oral vaccine, as well.) In 1956 I remember lining up at the Hiram School to get the Salk; I was 12. And I don’t recall anyone not doing it—though there surely were some.

I never used to get the flu (or the shots), but then I did, and I’ve been getting the shot ever since—have not had the flu in many years.

Smallpox was the scourge of earlier generations. The vaccine has been around since the late 18th century, and when Mary Godwin (later: Shelley) was in Geneva for the “Frankenstein summer” in 1816 (the summer she began writing the story), she arranged to have her young son William vaccinated.

But she neglected herself, and in 1828 she contracted the disease, which did not kill or disfigure her but seems to have diminished the glow of her beauty.

I remember the scar of the vaccination on my mother’s arm, my father’s. But by the time I got it, the technique was different, and I bear no scar.

Meanwhile, back at CVS, a nurse called me to window next to where the Usurpers had slipped in ahead of me. “I’ll take care of you,” she said. I had registered online, so I had no paperwork to fill out—just show them my vaccine card (which I did).

She took me right back to the area where they delivered the shots, and I don’t think I’ve ever had so swift and painless an injection. We then headed over to the two chairs to wait to see if I’d have any bad reactions. (I didn’t.)

About ten minutes later the Usurpers came by, their smiles gone.

That’s okay: Mine replaced theirs.

NOTE: No bad reactions today—just some wee soreness in my arm.