Letter from a Vaccination Site in Oakland, CA
The vaccine went down like butter—the whole experience seemed far too easy. I was admitted 15 minutes before my appointment and I was not released until it was the exact time for me to be released—8:57 am. Furthermore, everyone at the vaccination site knew who they were and what they were doing, especially the people in uniform.
Why had I taken a book with me? There was no time to read. I’d taken a book based on previous experience in doctor’s offices; that if my appointment was at 9 am I would not be seen until I had read all the magazines in the waiting area, or at approximately 10:20 am, whichever time came first.
But this was not a doctor’s office, this was a parking lot adjoining a multi-complex sports venue in a major metropolitan area where my fellow Americans were allowed to congregate and receive a FREE prize from the federal government, the NEW vaccine (the words FREE and NEW being the two most powerful words in the English language, according to Mohammad the Marketing Man).
From the moment I arrived at the vaccination site I felt the blessings of the new Administration—it was as if both Kamala and Joe were there with me, masks on, smiling with genuine concern for me as a citizen with a vote: everything was going to be alright, it didn’t matter if I was or wasn’t a taxpayer. Members of the National Guard were there to greet me, guiding my car skillfully thru the maze. When I was instructed by military hand signals to stop under then blue tent, I stopped, then I rolled down my window, as instructed, to be introduced to the team members. Everyone was pleasant, calm, organized, clear—I could well have been in a day spa or a fast-food drive-in in Fillmore, Utah.
Lynette was the nurse, a nice lady from Hayward. She said I might feel a bit woozy after the injection—that some people had negative reactions—and that there were paramedics and other emergency medical personnel standing by if I showed any symptoms of death. I rolled up my left sleeve above the shoulder, expecting to feel something. I felt nothing, and said to Lynette, “ok, you can shoot me now.” Lynette said she already had.
A team member—FEMA—then issued a card with the notation that I had received my first shot and an appointment time for my second shot two weeks hence: same time, same place.
At 8:57 am I drove home, vaccinated, full of the guaranteed 55% protection I now had against the coronavirus. Feeling a bit woozy I stopped for a chocolate croissant and a loaf of sourdough bread at Jane the Bakery on Geary, then rounded the corner and headed up the hill to Mollie Stone market for a pound of skirt steak.
Later, after taking in the day when it was well behind me, I hoped that all disasters from this point forward would be administered as efficiently as this disaster, of which we’re making a blue print for the notion of working together with smiling faces for the common good, making at the same time a model of what decent government might look like when it’s decent.
I’m afraid though of what the government might not have told me—a state secret: that by taking the vaccine I might have to live forever.