Up until fairly recently, I had relatively no concept of when I might receive the vaccination. When eligibility was opened up, a couple of weeks back, for those of us 50 and older, I was neck-deep in a looming work project, and figured I’d take care of it immediately afterwards. During that time, my wife got her first shot via Walgreens. Things were looking up.
The work project that was embroiling all five of my senses came and went, and was mercifully a huge success, but like heads of the Hydra, when you successfully cut off one, two grow in its place. Regardless, I dutifully hopped on New York State’s “Am I Eligible?” appointment-scheduling site. This should be relatively simple, I thought.
If you spent your childhood playing video games that required quick hand-eye coordination, those hours of inane time-wasting may have actually trained you well for this particular task. After answering a series of banal questions and filling in a few stats (and proving you are not a robot via your ability to distinguish traffic lights from fire hydrants), you are suddenly off to the races. When the right date pops up – and, really, at this stage, any date is the right date – you have to click two successive boxes with the stealth of a famished cheetah if you expect to score a slot. You can arguably game the system by refreshing the screen at key moments, but more often than not, you’ll be deposited back at the starting point, needing once again to demonstrate that you are STILL NOT A FUCKING ROBOT because you can recognize a crosswalk or a palm tree when you see one.
After several unsuccessful hours of this, I did manage to secure an appointment … only it wasn’t until late May. I was indeed relieved to have that on the books, but didn’t really want to put if off that far, if I didn’t have to. As such, I kept trying for a sooner appointment.
The secret to same, I found, was to drink a huge, honkin’ gallon of weapons-grade coffee, limber up my digits and hop on that website during less-harried hours. I went only at 6:00 AM and landed a new slot in no time. I went ahead and cancelled my May appointment and was ready to go.
Go time for shot #1 – Pfizer – was yesterday afternoon. Having collected all the necessary forms and credentials, I ambled my way up to the Javits Center.
Never a big fan of this particular neighborhood, I have not been up to the way, west Thirties probably since 2015, when I conducted a frankly ludicrous search for a loading dock the fuckin’ Strokes once posed in for a photograph (suffice to say, I had a LOT of free time, at the time). I have no interest in the re-imagined Hudson Yards and, until yesterday, had never laid eyes on the Vessel – to which I say, big whoop. Being that I got to my destination too early (this always happens), I walked around the `hood, trying to reconcile it as the same plot of real estate I’d combed looking for the location of that photograph. It is nigh on unrecognizable.
The Javits Center, however, is still pretty hard to miss. Despite still being about fifteen minutes early, I went on in and started the process.
I’m not exactly sure what I’d been expecting, but it was all remarkably well-organized, and the line moved very swiftly. After an initial stop at one desk for verification, you are directed further down a succession of roped-off lines – as if boarding a plane or a ride at Disneyworld – until a National Guard officer directs you to a station. One gent from behind me scooted in front of both myself and a couple ahead of me, which seemed a bit needless, but he was visibly nervous about the whole endeavor.
After you sit down, you re-verify certain bits of info, get swabbed up and then in it goes. Having watched endless b-roll on nighttime news programs, I was half-expecting an agonizingly slow insertion of a big fuckoff needle, but it was honestly over before I knew what hit me, not unlike a flu shot.
After that, I was ushered over to area filled with folding chairs to wait for a 15-30 minute spell in case I developed some sort of adverse reaction. Mercifully, that didn’t happen, and I was let go to get on with my life until I return three weeks from yesterday for my second shot.
If I can manage to get this done, so can you. Go do it.
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