Sorry about the lack of posts lately, but I've been fighting a few battles on, so to speak, the home front.
Main battle: Like many of you, I'd been scrambling to score the Covid vaccine. In New York state, where I live, the quest for the shots has been something right out of Kafka. Our local county officials brag day after day about the scores of sites (mainly chain drugstores) which are administering the vaccine. Day after day, they enthusiastically and helpfully list all the sites. Hope springs eternal, day after day, that this could finally be your lucky day in the lottery of bare survival. I spent countless hours over the past month obsessively clicking on every single one of these sites and links - only to be informed that I'd have to install an app on my phone to even get access to an application for an appointment. But never mind, because they are currently not taking any appointments anyway.
It's classic bait and switch, on a grander scale than I have ever experienced in my life. It's also excessively, gaslightingly cruel. It is especially sadistic in my state, given that New York has already creepily begun issuing "vaccine passports" for the lucky few. It even got me wondering if I was doing something wrong in my failure to get access to get an appointment to get vaccinated.
But it turns out that my quixotic quest for the Elixir has been the rule rather than the exception for the majority of people, in my state and in many other areas of the country. It is the epitome and most recent glaring symptom of the Failed State in which we live.
But miracle of miracles! In neighboring Orange County, the chief executive had taken to posting scarce appointment availabilities on his own personal website in the dead of night when crashes caused by desperate people are less likely.
My son, who happens to work in the dead of night, pounced and made appointments for both me and my daughter at a "pod" only one hour's drive away from our home.
Long story short: Steeling myself for another nightmare straight out of Kafka, I armed myself to the teeth with more forms of I.D. than even the Department of Motor Vehicles requires, fully prepared to beg right on my creaking knees for bureaucrats to find me valid enough to pass the final exam of deservedness.
So you can only imagine how stunned we were on Friday to be ushered like VIPs into a comparative Disney theme park at a local senior center. Scores of happy workers greeted us effusively. One of them even wore a Lion King shirt! We were immediately seated at a table and answered a few nonintrusive perfunctory questions before rolling up our sleeves and getting inoculated.
We were offered bottled water by dozens of smiling people while we were seated in an observation area for the requisite 15 minutes. The experience not only stunned me right out of my habitual cynicism, it restored my faith in humanity itself.
For those of you who still waiting, still struggling to score your own shots, let me tell you that the feeling of doom and dread that departs from your psyche the minute you receive that first dose of elixir is an elixir in and of itself. On the downside, getting the shot does leave you with something akin to survivor guilt, knowing that so many people are still having problems getting theirs.
I have to quit now, because my arm still hurts like a bitch when I exert it. It's a great feeling, she said shamefacedly.
One windmill down, only about a few thousand left to go. So stay tuned while I wait for all the ebullience to subside and for my cynicism to healthily return. Meanwhile, please feel free to leave a comment on your own quests to become meritocratic winners in the Golden Arm Sweepstakes, or for that matter, anything else that's on your minds.
Happy Easter!
