Because of Winn Dixie: The Shingrix Vaccine

The newest shingles vaccine, Shingrix, is 90% effective. That's far superior to its competition, which is only at 50%. It was released last November to a standing ovation and, due to its reputation, has remained in short supply ever since.

So over the last couple of weeks, I've been calling various pharmacies both near me and where I work. Despite the Shingrix website's claims, no one had it.

Then the day before yesterday I called a Winn Dixie in Wesley Chapel and was told that the vaccine would probably arrive the next day. I was excited. I asked if I could come at noon and they cautioned me to call first, in case it was delayed.

I had high hopes.

At noon yesterday I placed the call. Another voice at the pharmacy answered and told me that yes, they had it in. I was ecstatic! Then the woman asked for my name and date of birth. I happily gave them to her and then added "Oh but you won't have me in your system. I haven't used a Winn Dixie pharmacy before."

There was a pause.

"What?" asked the woman sharply. "You haven't... oh, you're not one of our patients?!"

"Well no," I said, "but you're a pharmacy and..." I trailed off.

"Oh well," she said, "We only have one in stock and we prefer to reserve that vaccine for one of our patients that has already had the vaccine." It's a two-part vaccine, you see, which must be administered 2-6 months apart.

"Aren't both vaccines the same?" I asked. She admitted they were. "Well then," I said, "Can't I get it if I come today?"

"Well we can't turn you AWAY," the woman said grudgingly. "But I've called other customers who had their first shot and now need THIS one."

"Well yes," I said mildly, "but I need it also. If I came over now could you give it to me?"

"Well I can't stop you," she said somewhat ungraciously.

So I went. I flew over there, and raced through the doors, watching other customers coming and going and hoping that no one else had beat me to that precious vaccine.

I stood in line at the pharmacy, almost dancing in anticipation. I finally got to the window. "I'm the one that just called," I said. "For the Shingrix vaccine?"

The svelte Scandinavian blond, an older woman with an improbable name tag of Margaret (I would have expected Heidi or Elle) informed me in clipped, accented tones that the vaccine was still available. And then she tried again to discourage me from getting it. I was The Interloper descending into her well-ordered kingdom and justice was in peril. I realized she was the same woman I'd just spoken with on the phone.

"You must understand," she said. "I really prefer to reserve this vaccine for our current customers. We are always running out of it, so I often am calling the pharmacies that don't use it as much. It's hard to get it."

She looked at me expectantly, waiting for me to fall on my sword and say "Oh, well if it's for the good of total strangers, by all means let me come down with shingles!"  But I merely smiled and passed her my drivers license and insurance card.

"Well, sometimes insurance doesn't cover it," Margaret said, with the weak hope of a woman near defeat. I smiled at her again and said nothing. I was attempting to be nice. It's scary to think that someone might mess with your vaccine in revenge, or give you a brutal experience with the sharp end of a needle. Margaret's name tag also said she was a pharmacy manager, whatever that meant. I knew it might mean she was also the person that did the jabbing.

She sniffed and walked away to run my information. After a time, she came back and reluctantly admitted my vaccine was covered under insurance. Honestly, I would have been willing to pay full price if I had to, and it wasn't cheap. With my a rather faulty immune system, and being the sole earner in a household of one, I couldn't afford to be out with a case of shingles.

Margaret had me fill out the paperwork and, after a wait, came out to administer the vaccine herself (I had been right). I smiled placatingly at her again and thanked her for her largesse. She was Lady Bountiful: Giver of the Shingrix Vaccine, and she was happy to let me know it.

Margaret once again went into the long tiresome explanation about how the vaccine really should have been reserved for someone else. I think up until that moment she still had the high hopes that I'd back out. But I didn't. I just smiled and thanked her for making me the exception.

And so, resignedly, she prepared to administer the vaccine. My blouse was long sleeved and the sleeves were very tight at the wrist, so I said I could always take it off, since I had an undershirt on. But because it was so loose around the neck, it was easy to pull down one shoulder, and that's what I did. As she prepped my shoulder with an alcohol wipe, she told me sharply to let go of the fabric. "I can do that," she snapped at me.

"Oh, OK," I said humbly, somewhat alarmed now that the needle was in close proximity and reminded that I was at her mercy. Then she put on a band-aid only partially and said, somewhat snottily, "There. It's done." I looked at her with a raised eyebrow and looked at the site where half the band-aid lay, with the other half still covered. I guess she would place the band-aid first, give the injection, and then pull the tab off the other portion of the band-aid to finish the assault. "Oh just kidding," she said, not smiling. "I bet I fooled YOU!"

"Heh heh," I agreed.

Finally the deed was done and I left in quiet triumph. I had vanquished Margaret and I had got the vaccine.

Vignettes

TOP SECRET

I'm training the new sales guy, and am sitting in on his second call out when someone answers the phone.

"Hello?" she says in almost a whisper.

"Hello Dr. Ferra," says the new sales guy and he launches into his pitch.

"Oh yes!" says the doctor. "I HAVE received your emails. But I'm not. in. a. position. to. act. on. that. now," she adds in a "do-you-understand-what-I'm-hinting-at" tone of voice.

The new sales guy looks at me, baffled. I shrug.

"Oh, uh, okay," he says hesitantly. "Do you want me to...?"

"You can keep sending me information," she says as mysteriously as if she was passing government secrets to the Russians.

"Well, OK, I will," he says, put off his stride at this point. "I, will, um, send you emails."

"Good," she breathes into the phone. "Until I'm in a different position, it will have to remain that way."

The sales guy gets off the phone and looks at me. "What was all THAT about?" he asks.

HO HO HO

My nail tech indulges in soliloquies sometimes. Last night she began with a random one.

"So we were in Vegas last week," she began, "and our Uber driver's name was Lee Chong-Ho. And he said he chose Ho as his family name when he came to the states, instead of Chong.

And I asked him WHY? WHY would you choose Ho as your family name?

He said it was a dynasty. I said "What is wrong with the CHONG dynasty?"

She paused, inspected one of my nails, then continued.

""I come from a long line of Hos.

My parents were Hos.

My entire family is all Hos.

I'm a Ho."

See why that doesn't work?"

BECAUSE OF WINN DIXIE

The chubby checkout guy at the grocery store readjusts his too-tight company shirt as he swaggers at his cash register. Until now, I'd never realized you could swagger while standing in one place, more or less.

"Well hello," he says.

"How are you," I say perfunctorily.

"I'm ALT-LEFT," he says, delighted to show off.

I don't smile. "Alt left?" I ask, feeling obligated.

"Oh well EVERYONE says they're all-RIGHT," he says. "So I want to be different. I'm ALT-LEFT, now."

"Ah," I say, my voice trailing off.

"Because it's not like everyone else says," he adds unhelpfully.

"Ah," I say again.

Michael Scott from The Office is reborn in a cashier at my local Winn Dixie.

The Christian Mingle Date with The Confederate Soldier

I've had some terrible first dates that never turned into second dates. Someday I'll write about them all.

The worst men I've met are, sadly, through Christian Mingle. Christian Mingle doesn't really vet the men on there and it's quite obvious. I've often asked myself WHY these men are so much more...well... frankly, evil than the men that can be met on any other dating site.

I still don't have the answer. I suspect it may be for a couple reasons, however:

1. The man who is morally corrupt but wants a 'pure' woman.
2. The man who is self-medicating through religion, and isn't doing a very good job at it.

These men make up the far majority on Christian Mingle, which is finally why I gave up on the site.

One day I met a Confederate Soldier at Panerra for coffee.

"Oh," you say. "Wait a minute. Didn't the Civil War happen a very long time ago?"

Yes, it did. But there are still weirdos who identify so much with the culture of that time that it's almost crippling to them. They are only one asylum visit away from believing they are Robert E. Lee.

I've written about the problem of the misnamed "Confederate Flag" before. It's worth reading if you don't know the history of this obscure flag that's risen to red neck prominence. Go ahead and take a minute to read it, and then I'll continue.

Are you finished?

OK.

Strange how it ties into The Muppets, isn't it?

OK, that was just a test to see if you really read it or not. It had nothing to do with The Muppets, or else Miss Piggy could never carry on an inter-species relationship with Kermit.

So back to The Confederate Soldier. Let's call him "Lee" in honor of his idol.

I walked into Panera and Lee was already sitting there. I recognized him from his photo, which was refreshing, as I once had a 60 year old guy surprise me after posting his photos from twenty years before.

Lee was plain: Silver haired, ice blue eyes, and teeth spaced a little too widely apart for comfort. His lantern jaw was perpetually thrust out aggressively. I remember my grandmother used to say "If you keep making that face, someday it will freeze that way." Lee apparently never had a grandmother that issued such dire warnings.

I slid into my seat, and we chatted briefly. He was divorced, two kids in their tweens, and very involved in their lives. So that was a plus. He went to church weekly. Another plus.

"AND," he suddenly added, "I proudly fly the Confederate Flag."

Cue the screeching sound of brakes.

"You...wait, what?" I stammered. He repeated it. "Why?" I asked, faintly. I am not kidding, here. I was really shocked. After all, he had just told me that he was attending a very respectable Baptist church.

"Well I have the right to be proud of my heritage," he said with great confidence. I sensed a bit of childish glee in successfully throwing me such a curve. This was a man who took great pleasure in shocking others.

"So you have an ancestor who fought in the Civil War?" I asked.

"Nope," he said. "But I take pride in my Southern Roots." He said it in such a way that you could really sense the capitalization: Southern Roots.

"Uh, there are many things to be proud of in the south," I said. "But the Civil War? Aren't you offending others?"

"Well I don't care if I AM offending others," he answered, smugly.

"The Bible makes it very clear that Christians are not supposed to be deliberately offensive to others," I said, almost pleadingly. It was a statement, but it was also a question. How could a Christian resolve such a dilemma within his heart?

"But then," said Lee, "whatever we could do could be seen as offensive. Where do we draw the line? I have the right to display what I'm proud of."

"Which is your southern heritage," I stated. He nodded.

I then got into the history of the flag (in the article I asked you to read - the one that tells you about how the Muppets were involved). It fell on deaf ears.

"I don't care," he replied, stubbornly. "This is what it means NOW."

"Doesn't it symbolize racism?!" I asked

"Not to ME," he answered.

"But to OTHERS," I stated.

"That's THEIR problem, and not mine," he said gloatingly. "In fact," he continued, "we have a black preacher. And I like him!" Well there you go. He has a black preacher that he likes. So he can't be racist. Case closed, his motives are pure.

"Well surely you are offending HIM?" I asked.

"Oh at first he was offended," said Lee. "But I set him straight. He preached a sermon about racism and how the Confederate Flag was a racist symbol, but I took him aside in God's love and explained to him how wrong he was. Now he sees the light."

I'm sure he did see the light, and it was a piercing spotlight on Lee's heart.

And thus ended our first and only date. Later, Lee texted me to tell me he didn't think we were a good fit. I had rather thought that went without saying.