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January 20, 2021
Hello, beautiful, warm Florida winter day. And what a day it would be. The Orange Menace would leave the White House, and sanity in Washington would be restored. On top of that, Other Bill had a 2:45 appointment at Marlins Park to get his first Covid vaccine. It only took 109 phone calls to try to get scheduled the previous day, but by gum we had done it.
I was not fortunate enough to qualify for getting a vaccine due to the vast generation gap between Other Bill and me. 21 years to be exact.
(Editor’s Note: It’s 21 months, not years.)
So at about 1:45 we turned off the TV and got into my 12 year old Honda Civic and headed down to Miami.
(Editor’s Note: Due to the advanced age of the author and his illogical fear of getting lost (he does have a GPS), it should be noted that he is terrified to drive down I-95, recently renamed the George Zimmerman Honorary Expressway of Death. After crossing the county line, all music is turned off, and conversation is ceased so all that is audible is the weeping and gnashing of teeth of the driver as luxury SUV’s and sport bikes flip him off and try to run him off the road. And now, back to his story.)
We made it confidently and safely to Marlins Park, an enormous baseball stadium that looks like a giant spaceship. There were no vaccination signs, so after passing what I thought were blocks of parked cars, I found a policewoman and asked her where the entrance for the Covid vaccine was.
“See these cars?” She asked, doing a sweeping, Carol Merrill arm gesture aligning with the rows of “parked” cars. “This is the line for both testing and vaccines. Go down to 17th Street and make a left, and find the end of the line.”
I thanked her, and we went on our way. Seventeenth Street was 5 blocks away. The end of the line was Mallory Square in Key West. After we arrived, I made a U-turn and began what was to be a generational wait in a car with granite seats.
(Editor’s Note: The end of the line was only 7 more blocks.)
Thus began hours of horn honking and clogged traffic turning onto 17th Street. Some entitled cars cut in front of us, and we could do nothing about that, because this is America, and even worse, Miami, and if you want to live, you just assume that everyone has a Glock-in-the-box or an AR-15 on the floorboard. There was one mild altercation with a woman in a giant Lexus (it’s always a Lexus), whom I thought was cutting in front of me, but was just making a turn from the wrong lane. She zipped down her enormous window and cursed a blue streak at me. Fortunately, it was in Spanish, so there was no way for me to be offended, because, um, nolo comprende, as they say in the Latin legal community.
At one point a cop came into my view. I could hear him asking the person in front of me if they were there for a test or a vaccine.
“Great!” I told Other Bill. “The line should be cut down now, because probably half of these people are here for a test and will go into another lane somewhere.”
It was the first of many ultra-naïve statements I would make that day.
Indeed, the cop wrote something on the windshield of the car in front of us, and they got out of the line and drove away. So the line decreased not by 50%, but by one car.
The officer came and asked me why we were there, and I almost said, “because there’s nothing I like better than idling and wasting gas,” but quickly thought better of it.
“We had a 2:45 appointment for a vaccine,” I said. At that time, it was 3:30.
“That’s okay,” he said, and he scribbled a day-glo “V” on my windshield, and we proceeded with the speed of a banana slug.
“So what time do you think I’ll get the shot?” Other Bill asked me.
“Hmmm, I don’t know, 4:30?”
That was ultra-naïve statement number two.
An hour later, or was it two? Who knows. The entire process was a time warp. Anyway, eras later, we pulled into a stadium entrance and the single lanes then became three lanes. Now we were progressing, I thought.
That was unspoken ultra-naïve statement #3.
Not long after that, everything stopped. No one moved for a half hour. People began getting out of their cars. To stretch, to smoke. I got out, brushed the granite dust off of me, and did some attempts at toe-touches. It was then I looked back and saw that the long line behind us had disappeared. What had happened? Were they sent home? This was unanswered question number one.
We both began worrying that due to the prolonged stationary status of the cars, combined with the disappearance of the line behind us, they had run out of the vaccine. I thought it would only be a matter of minutes before they would make us turn around and go home.
(Editor’s Note: Nothing about this prolonged shit show was measured in a “matter of minutes.”)
Many moons later, traffic began to crawl again until we reached a turn in the road. More delays as three lanes were merged into two. As we made the turn, I assumed we were now in the final stretch of the process.
That was mega-naïve assumption #1.
Not long afterward, the 12 year old Honda Crapper began to complain. When I stepped on the gas, it sputtered and snorted and stalled. Repeatedly. Visions of pushing a dozen-year old piece of junk the rest of the way danced in my head. I wondered how many people in line were running on empty. There would be money to be made here as a gasoline vendor or snack seller.
I eyed two porta-potties that were put out for law enforcement use. I had earlier consumed my recommended daily allowance of iced Diuretic Tea, and although I didn’t have to go, I thought it would be a wise idea. Since we were once again not moving, I put on my rubber gloves and adjusted my N-95 mask and proceeded to go to the can.
(Editor’s Note: Ever since the beginning of the pandemic, the author has become a paranoid germaphobe. He has had to file environmental impact statements with the EPA due to the volume of PPE he’s gone through. He is easily spotted at Aldi, being the only one wearing an Ebola-grade hazmat suit with taped gloves and cuffs. He keeps a bottle of isopropyl alcohol in his crappy Honda Civic for post-possible-exposure gargling and nasal snorting. “It may sting a bit,” he says, “but it kills bugs dead, like Raid.” And now, back to his show.)
After that, I threw out my gloves and went and cleaned my hands.
(Editor’s note: That would be a Silkwood shower with the above mentioned alcohol with a side of Brillo.)
There was a cop at the “last” turn in the road, and Other Bill asked her if she knew how much longer it would be.
“Mmmm, probably two more hours,” she said.
It was then I wanted to go pick a fight with one of the people who had earlier cut in front of me. With any luck, maybe he would shoot me in the head. We were already on hour 3.
Instead I insisted that Other Bill go use the Porta-Potty.
“But I don’t have to go,” he said, like a toddler.
“Will you be able to say that in two hours when you can’t get back to the john?”
Reluctantly, he complied and then came back and washed his hands.
(Editor’s Note: Other Bill thinks the author’s worries about sanitation are ridiculous, but he nevertheless appeases him by washing his hands in isopropyl whenever he touches something.)
There was another lengthy pause with no movement. Were the shot-givers taking a lunch break? Unanswered question #2.
In time, an official with an iPad stopped at our card. “Do you have your bar code?” He asked.
“I never got a bar code,” Other Bill said.
“They should have sent you a bar code,” he said.
OB then tried to shift the blame to me, “Did you get a bar code?”
Let us take a short time out to talk about Other Bill’s complete inability to comprehend technology. Every time he has to sign in to an app, he doesn’t remember his login credentials, and then gets mad at the laptop for not letting him change the password. I have watched him look for hours to try to locate the Escape key on his keyboard. I have endlessly shown him how to share a URL, yet he still struggles mercilessly. The primary macro that runs in his brain is text that reads: “I don’t know how to do that.”
Editor’s Note: Other Bill just finished reading the above paragraph and didn’t understand it.
I am sure there was a bar code on his phone, or in one of three of his email addresses, but he insisted he never got anything.
Naturally, he doesn’t have any of those email accounts on his phone, because his phone is pretty much a single-task machine. Making calls is its only function.
So then I began the Herculean task of trying to install his Gmail account on my phone. My phone is a 2006 Android relic that should be hanging in a technology museum somewhere. We were in the heart of Miami, yet I could not get a signal. Then we began worrying that if we couldn’t get the damn bar code we’d have to go home.
“What’ll happen if we can’t find the bar code?” Other Bill asked the portly official.
“Well, you can still stay in line and see if the nurses will still give it to you.”
I hadn’t cried for a long time. It had been hours since my ugly Lucy-esque bawling during the inauguration when the poet spoke. I felt that familiar tingle in my sinuses.
(Editor’s Note: It was the isopropyl.)
Cowering in fear, we soon were approached by Ashley. Sweet and understanding and well-informed Ashley, who also had an iPad, but also had an alphabetized list that was as thick as the Biden family Bible seen earlier that day. Other Bill’s name was on that list, so in no time he was registered, and she put another mark on our windshield. We were so grateful and relieved that we are going to buy her a Mercedes SUV.
(Editor’s Note: No, they won’t.)
There was another tortured lifetime of no movement, so I decided to walk up to try to see the front of the line. I walked up until I could see a tent, which I assumed was the vaccination site. That was mega-naïve assumption #2.
I told Other Bill when I got back that there were “only” about 30 cars to the tent.
The sun was setting, but we stayed put.
The two adjacent lanes split off. We passed the empty decoy tent I saw earlier and made another turn into a dirt parking lot with another 18 blocks’ worth of zig-zagging cars. Suddenly, I felt the urge for a cigarette. For the first time in 40 years. I wouldn’t have said no to a bottle of vodka, either.
As we joined the zigzag, Other Bill passed the time and started naming drivers for each car. There was Smokey, directly in front of us, who got out of his car every hour and smoked a cigarette.
(Editor’s Note: Every time Smokey lit up, your author would shut the car windows to keep out the Covid Smoke Germs.)
Each time we zigged or zagged, Other Bill would continue the stories he made up about Smokey, OT (which stood for Old Timer) or Whip, who was the one who always whipped around the hairpin turns, and the woman he called Mo, named for no apparent reason.
(Editor’s Note: By this time, the author was biting his tongue, trying his best to not shout out, “Will you please shut the hell up about these characters and get me a Benson and Hedges Menthol Light and a fifth of Absolut?!” He passed the time trying to calculate how much it would cost him to divorce Other Bill. Sadly the bottom line was too much.)
I was worried sick about the dog, because she had never been left alone at night this long. By then, I figured, she had already peed in the house. Likewise, I also had to pee again. I have to confess that during this pandemic I keep a portable urinal in the back seat of my car, because when I take Other Bill to the oncologist in the mornings, I have to sit in the car for hours while he goes down the assembly line of doctors, technicians, and nurses. So while that is going on, I can simply relieve myself into the pot when I’m in the back seat. I figured that it might be just as easy in the front seat. At this point we were too far away from the porta pots and were not allowed to leave our cars. So I set to work.
Big mistake. I won’t go into details except to say that I may never wear those pants again.
(Editor’s Note: Those pants are still unwashed and in the laundry hamper.)
By the time we realized it would be after 8 until we could leave, it was dark as midnight out. After our 18 zigs and zags were complete, another official stopped us and asked us for our consent form.
“I don’t have a consent form,” Other Bill told her. I knew it was somewhere in his email with the bar code.
The official supplied him with a blank form.
Now, I have been meaning to keep a pen in my car at all times, but they tend to get tucked into a shirt pocket and taken inside the house and then washed in the laundry. All we had was a Sharpie. It wouldn’t do.
“Do you have a pen?” Other Bill asked her.
“I’ll find you something,” she said, and soon returned with a stubby golf pencil.
Naturally, neither of us brought our reading glasses, because we had no idea we would be filling out a paper form in the dark with a writing device that wouldn’t fit in our hand. Other Bill, with his eye problem was more useless than I was, so I started checking boxes.
I came to section 2 of the form, which asked, inexplicably, for insurance information. I was ready to spit nails. Fortunately, the official told us we could skip the insurance data, and Other Bill put his card away, which he couldn’t read. I think it might have actually been his library card, but since it’s not nice to tease the blind, I said nothing.
By this time we could see two never-before-seen tents, and we were happy to see masked workers entering data into iPads and giving shots.
Then a National Guardsman came by and asked how many shots we were getting.
“Just one,” I told him.
Oh good grief, I thought, we have sat here six hours, and now they are counting people to see if they have enough vaccines. We gritted our teeth and held our ground.
Unknown minutes/hours later, a nurse came and also asked how many in our party were getting shots.
“One, unfortunately,” I said solemnly, pointing at Other Bill. “Just him.”
“Do you want to get one? I can give you one if you want one,” she said.
I looked up, and there was a blinding halo glowing around her head, and I heard the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
“Are you serious? Really?” I asked, close to tears.
(Editor’s Note: Again, isopropyl.)
“Sure, no problem,” she said. “Let me get you a consent form.”
Other Bill told her he loved her and would have hugged her, had it been legal for him to exit the Civic.
We were both ecstatic. We couldn’t believe we were that lucky. She came back with a fresh consent form, and I was shaking as I filled it out with the nub of graphite.
The vaccine is very fragile and has an out-of-freezer shelf life of 4 hours. Since we were second-to-dead-last in line by that time, we learned that they had two use-it-or-lose-it syringes left. I was lucky enough to get one of them.
And then, after 6 and a half hours, it finally happened. I have been never been happier to take a needle in the arm in my life.
(Editor’s Note: Except for that one time the author tried heroin. JK!)
We never got the woman’s name who made our day (and night). But we will find out and buy her a Lamborghini.
(Editor’s Note: In the unnamed woman’s wildest dreams.)
So after the shot, we were released, and we were ready to get home. The dog was hours late for her evening meal and potty walk. But we couldn’t go yet. We were directed to another lane where we had to sit for another 15 minutes, presumably to be monitored for reactions.
And then it was over. We raced home in the I-95 express lane.
(Editor’s Note: The author always sets his cruise control at 55 and not a click higher.)
It was once again a beautiful day. Biden was in office, Trump was at the beach, sulking and calling attorneys, and the two of us were 50% vaccinated against this horrible disease.
And when we arrived, the dog was there, toy in mouth, happy to see us. Miraculously there was no dog poop or pee anywhere. It was a great day after all.
(Editor’s Note: Look on the dog’s favorite chair you never use. You’ll find a gift from her.)
The best news is, we get to get to go through it all again in 3 weeks.
Maybe this time Other Bill will bring his bar code.
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| Using my unsurpassed skills as a graphic artist, I have made this map of our journey. |
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