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A shot in the arm

3 min read

The other day I heard a woman tell her friend, “I got my shots.” It took all of my front teeth to bite down on my lip because I wanted to say, “Good girl. You still have to be careful about parvo, though.”

Maybe it’s me, but the sentence, “I got my shots,” made her sound like a cocker spaniel. Maybe I’ve just been cooped up too long.

The good news is … more and more people are getting vaccinated, and maybe we can go back to normal someday soon, but we aren’t there yet.

“I’m vaccinated,” is the new “I’m all dressed up with no place to go.” You’re ready for the world but the world isn’t ready for you. Keep your trousers on! Literally! I know a lot of single people who haven’t even … um … hugged another human in 12 months.

The world is now separated into the Vaccinated and the Untouchables.

The One A’s are the new elite. Suddenly, we are envious of our older people. The sicker you are and the older you are, the easier it is to get VIP status in the new club.

I heard a guy say, “I have heart disease and I’m pre-diabetic and I’m still in 1B.”

The longer the list of illnesses, the happier your friends are for you. Step to the front of the line if you’re decrepit and dying.

“Oh, my, you’ve got one foot in the grave. They need to move you up the list.”

Um. Yay?!

It’s like Bizarro World Studio 54. We’re outside in a long queue while the older and most feeble get the velvet rope taken down for them.

P.S. If you’re old enough to remember Studio 54, you get to move to the front of the line.

I am assuming most of my readership is vaccinated. I remember when a twenty-something came up to me and said, “My grandma reads your column!”

To put it in a more modern – more Pittsburgh – parlance: I feel like I’m in line for the Racer and I’m counting the seats in the cars. I’m sure I’ll get on the next ride, but the 16-year-old in the red vest stops me because there are too many in my party.

Everyone is posting photographs on Facebook and Instagram of their vaccination card, or a picture of a nurse puncturing them in the arm with the needle.

Side note: Every time they show someone taking the COVID-19 test, I have to look away. I didn’t know I was squeamish until I saw a doctor stab a guy in the nose with a needle that looked like it was going to come out the backside of his head. The COVID test should be called the Brain Tickler.

But I digress, like I do. Vaccination envy is taking the world by storm. Getting vaccinated is the new Beanie Babies.

The best we can do is, literally and figuratively, roll up our sleeves and wait. Better to be patient than to be a patient.

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