Spare Change

i've been shot

Posted by Bryan

On Friday, NAMB offered employees free flu innoculations. I decided to get one, since we've seemed to be particularly susceptible to the backwoods viruses that call the North Georgia atmosphere "home." In fact, our date night for Friday was postponed because of Kaylyn having a returning bout with one particularly resistant strain of redneck influenza.

Anyway, I answered the 9 a.m. cattle call to the fourth floor, and headed down. I was amazed at how many co-workers made up feeble excuses to avoid getting the shot. "I'm just getting off being ill, my immunity is down," "I've never had the flu and I'm afraid I'd start getting it," "I'm deathly allergic to hypodermic needles," and "in my quiet time today, the Lord told me that I'd be showing a lack of faith if I actually got the shot."

So I went down, and as I waited, I was surprised to discover that my level of anxiety was steadily increasing in direct proportion to my approach to the adminstering nurses. I was also a little alarmed to realize that as my anxiety increases, I attempt to deal with it by trying to be funny. By the time I was "in the batter's box," I was a veritable Henny Youngman. I was zipping out one-liners about the needle being the size of a turkey baster, that I thought this was the line for eight items or less, and that I just wanted everyone to understand that when I screamed in uncontrollable agony, it was in no way a reflection on the skill or ability of the nurse. If laughter is indeed the best medicine, then I was undoubtedly the Jack Kevorkian of the moment. All I succeeded in doing was raising the anxiety level of all those who had the misfortune of coming to get their shot the same time as I. And of course, this all goes to prove that influenza shots are easy, comedy is hard.

It was finally my turn, and the nurse pushed up my sleeve and asked, "Okay Carrot Top, have you ever had the shot before?" You could tell by the look on her face that she clearly had not appreciated my effort to lighten the mood in the room. Here is where I learned that it is nearly impossible to improve a relationship made bad because of weak humor by giving the disaffected person one additional shot of weak humor.

"Well, I can't remember exactly. My memory has 'flu' away."

ba-DUM-pum ^*CHSSSHHHH*

< crickets chirp > "No. Seriously. < /crickets chirp > "Have you or not?"

Sheepishly, I caved. "No, ma'am. I suppose I haven't."

Shifting to automatic, Nurse Ratchett then explained the various ways that this should *could* but probably wouldn't cause me to have the flu, go temporarily blind, have delusions of hilarity, and even die. As she went through this list, she swabbed up my left shoulder with a sterile solution comprised of her own saliva, Mountain Dew and Yoohoo, applied with a brillo pad.



and then it was over.

She promised that she actually gave me the shot, but I didn't feel a thing. I couldn't verify the action visually, because I had clenched every muscle from the top of my scalp to the tip of my big toe, causing the involuntary vise-like closing of my eyelids. So, I took her word for it, rather than ask for a second injection.

This of course allowed me to be tranformed from Funny Scared Guy, to Heroic Innoculation Recipient. As I walked past my fellow co-workers made terrified by my bad jokes, I assured them they were at the All State of flu shot-giving nurses. " You won't feel a thing," I told them. "Not even like a mosquito bite." I tried herding people in, convincing them that they needed to do it because it wouldn't hurt and they'd be better off for it. People had already made up their minds though. And nothing I was going to say would change their mind, and neither was the "I survived my flu shot" sticker that the nurse slapped to my chest as I walked out.

Two days later, my left shoulder is stiff and sore, like I had just finished a Wuss Out Marathon. Wuss Out, for you who are uninitiated, is the game boys play when they enter adolescence wherein two or more gather and begin slugging each other in the shoulder until all but one "wuss out" or give up. The trick to winning this game is combining the right proportion of velocity with knuckular penetration into muscle tissue. My left shoulder now feels like I was the Wuss Out runner up, which is the equivalent of being 2nd runner up in the Miss America contest, because the Wuss Out Champ is always able to fulfill his duties.

I was hoping that my stiff shoulder would get me out of lawn duties, but Dr. Kelli instead prescribed 14 hours of repetitive raking to work out the stiffness.

So we invested the day in gathering fallen leaves, bagging them, and then standing as a family in the front yard, observing that it appeared that we had made no noticeable impact whatsoever. But we had spent the day together, enjoying the cool autumn air of North Georgia.

And today I have the sniffles.