I got the vax. Got it early. It was one of the first rounds. Before people started getting myocarditis and dropping dead. Before we found out it didn't work. I've got this funny little juvenile diabetes problem. As such I have a "compromised" immune system. And my doc suggested I get vaxxed ASAP. I asked him if it was safe. He said 100% it's safe. He saw the data even. Told me as much. So I got invited to get jabbed the first week it was available along with a bunch of other sicks and olds. Cool. So I'll get vaxxed. No worries mang👍 I showed up to the BIG regional medical center. Parking was a bitch. They have this large conference center on the campus. That's where the vax event was. I checked in just inside the door. They look up my name. Give me a hospital bracelet. I thought that was kind of weird, but so was everything else during that strange time in world history so I rolled with it and put the bracelet on my wrist. Then I went to anther check in desk. This time to check me for symptoms. A lady took my temp with one of those worthless touchless thermometers. It was a cold day outside and my skin was still cold, so there's no fucking way it was reading anyone's correct temp. But fuck it. I'm still rolling with it. After I got my temp taken, another lady asked me a series of questions. She asked if I'd had a cough, fever, vomiting, headache, runny nose, loose stool, sore throat, fatigue, body aches or pain, indigestion, difficulty sleeping, or any other symptoms in the last 30 days. This was a test. Of course the entire covid thing was a test, but I hadn't figured that out yet. This particular test was to see how compliant I was. I wanted the vax (because the doctor I trusted said I needed it), but I was over lying. There was too much lying lately and I was done. So I told the lady, "Yes. I've had most of those." She was taken aback. I must have been the first person to admit that yes, sometimes I get a headache and loose stool--even at the same time. She asked me how often I have symptoms. I said "I have at least one of those every day." Now she's freaked out. I can see the fear in her eyes. But she's masked, so I can't see what the rest of her face is doing. She tells me I can't come it. I say, "Hey. I'm a diabetic in my 40s. Give me a break lady." And I probably told her i was lucky to be walking (because that's my standard line). I can see her thinking it over. And... logic wins, and she relents. So up the stairs I go to get vaxxed. At the top of the stairs is a huge ballroom. Like 10k square feet--like you'd find at any basic bitch conference center. But instead of a trade show there was a giant snaking cue made out of the stanchions with the retractable tape. Kind of like you see at the airport. There were hundreds of masked people in line. We were all standing on the "keep 6 foot distance" stickers. So I was 6 feet from the people in front and behind me. But the people to my left and right (because it's a snaking cue) were right next to me. I could reach out and touch them. More absurdity. Just like the black lady at airport security shouting to everyone to remove their shoes and take our their laptops, and shrill woman came walking thru the cue shouting that we needed to maintain 6 foot distance at all times. I exchanged glances with the person standing RIGHT NEXT TO ME on the STICKER and we both just shrugged. And then another lady came thru (they were all ladies BTW). This one was handing out blank vax cards and pens. She told us we needed to fill it out before we got to the injection table or we couldn't be injected. But we had no place to write. No hard surface. Not even the floor because it was that awful convention center low pile carpet. I tried doing it on my hand but it was made out of pulp paper and the cheap ballpoint poked right thru. So I filled mine out on top of one of the stanchions. It had a domed chrome top, but it was better than nothing. As a result my vax card is all fucked up. It's got holes and looks like it was filled out by a kid with a crayon. (The funny part is that I had it in my wallet for years to show at work and certain restaurants--no one ever questioned it.) After 90 minutes or so I made it to the front of the cue where I was told to go to a table with a certain number. They had a bunch of tables set up. They were all numbered. I found mine. They also had screens around the tables. I guess it was for privacy? A very nice nurse gave me the shot in my delt. It hurt but I've had worse. Cool I thought. I'm vaxxed. Now I am SAFE. So how do I get out of here? "Oh you can't leave yet", she said. "You have to sit in the Holding Room for at least 30 minutes." I'm like, "The WHAT room??" "The holding room." "Why do I have to go to the Holding Room?" "We want you on site in case you have a bad reaction." I'm confused now, and asked "Do people have bad reactions?" Her eyes went blank. There was something she didn't want to talk about. Something she didn't want to tell me. I was scared. But I didn't want to push it. Because I'd already made it this far and it was too late to go back. What happened next was the most absurdly bizarre dystopian thing that I saw during the covid years. It was more dystopian than the lockdown. Weirder than the time the Blue Angles flew over my local hospital to "boost morale". Stranger than being yelled at for not wearing a mask by an old lady on a hiking trail above the treeline 10 miles from the nearest paved road. It was even more dystopian than the 8:00 scream. Did this happen in your city? During week 2 of the lockdown, at 8pm every night, people would step outside their homes and scream. At first it was a cheer. Like a show of solidarity--like "we are strong and we can do this!" But after a few days it turned into screams of primal rage. Everyone was doing it. And I joined them. As odd as the 8pm scream was, it wasn't as odd as the vax Holding Room. It was in a theater. Like a lecture hall theater and it was huge. And packed full of people. There must have been 1000 recently vaxxed people in there. They were sitting next to each other. Shoulder to shoulder. But that was fine that they were all shoulder to shoulder. Because we were all vaxxed now. And we were safe, right? Because you can't get sick if you've got the vax. My doctor told me that👍 Everyone was completely silent. Their eyes were fixated on the screen. I took an empty seat, and I saw what they were watching. On the giant theater screen was a video. It was a magic hour shot. Beautiful gold light. It might have been shot in a park or a backyard. And in that park were puppies. They were playing with balloons in slow motion. Just shot after shot of puppies in slow motion. The soundtrack was some sort of light classical--just like the end of Soylent Green when Edward G. Robinson is getting euthanized (watch it--great movie--still holds up). And nobody in the audience moved. Nobody made a peep. They were hypnotized by the puppies. I thought to myself, what the fuck just happened? And what the fuck did I just take? And where the fuck am I?? Another, slightly scary thought crossed my mind. Was this video produced by the vax manufacturer? Were the puppies part of the plan? I mean, it was obviously part of the plan. It's to make people calm and keep them from freaking the fuck out. Did they know people would freak out? What was that nurse afraid of? I sat there for a few minutes watching the puppies. I was deeply uncomfortable. I needed to escape. There was a health care worker at the front of the room sitting under the screen. I could tell she was a health care worker because she was in scrubs and had a stethoscope around her neck. She was watching the audience. What was she watching for? I realized nobody was actually checking wait time. People just got up and left and nobody stopped them. So i did the same. I got up and left. Nobody stopped me. Nobody questioned me. I drove home, and in a few hours developed a fever. I was on my back in bed for the next 48 hours. I decided not to go back for the booster.
Got to write these things down lest I forget...
I finally got covid in fall of 2024. Gotta say it was pretty rough. Had a few ER visits and it took many weeks to get back to normal. It was like a different kind of sick. Probably because it was made in a lab?
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