Oh, Now You Tell Me

So I took a nap before driving up the exurban Twin Cities in order to get my first COVID-19 vaccine.  I wake up and check my phone.  As you would know, some notifications come while you're away.  In the middle of a bunch of them, I get a text from ... the Minnesota Department of Health.  I have been randomly selected to get a vaccination at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds as early as Tuesday evening.  And it's Pfizer too -- the one I planned on getting because I have stock in them!  Do you wanna sign up?

Oh, now you tell me.

I don't want to be upset, and I certainly don't want to be some Edina Karen who feels as though he was absolutely fucked over by the timing of this text.  But this would have been perfect for me.  Getting a shot at a place half as far from home, and for the brand of vaccine I have rejected other appointments at other places for?  I mean, come on.  And if my appointment was even tomorrow, I would have cancelled that appointment under the assumption I could get a perfect appointment (preferably next Saturday, or maybe even Friday afternoon) at the Fairgrounds.  But I was about to leave for the appointment I found overnight Tuesday, and I don't think it would be right to cancel just over an hour before the appointment.  Besides, knowing me, if I did cancel this appointment to get that one, I would have screwed something up.  The appointment would have fallen through, maybe, or the vaccination site at the State Fair would've run out of Pfizer and switched me to, ick, Moderna.  (I'm kidding!)

The experience itself wasn't that bad.  It was at a Target -- the fitting rooms, to be specific.  I'm not sure if either the person writing down the information on my vaccine card or the person actually injecting the vaccine into me are actual professionals or just look like that because the former was wearing scrubs and the latter a white coat, but they did their jobs competently and treated me with respect.  I would have preferred a mass vaccination site because of the environment -- everybody would know that they're there to either administer or receive a vaccine, not to shop for groceries and food.  But again, I didn't run into any problems.  Well, it was kind of unsettling to see, by my count, four anti-maskers shopping because they felt free since we were closer to rural Minnesota.  (By the by, I saw a few South Asians there, including the two people in the shot line before me, and a couple Black people walking into Target as I was making my way out of Target.)  Other than that, no problems.

I am now awaiting the blowback.  Many, many more people get sick after the second shot, but I've heard some have gotten headaches, fever, chills and fatigue after the first shot.  That would suck if that happened to me because I'm working tomorrow and didn't plan on taking tomorrow off.  I bought a thermometer online, so I am finally going to get to use it tomorrow morning before going to work.  I really, really don't know what I would do if I wake up with a fever.

OK, so this blog post is more about my experience getting a shot rather than getting an offer for a vaccine hours before driving to get my vaccine.  Whatevs, man.