On Friday March 26, I received my second injection of the Pfizer vaccine at a Brooklyn health center on Clarkson Street. The appointment was automatically scheduled on the day of my first shot.
Like before, there was a line of people queued up for in-processing – 4 ahead of me, and at least a dozen behind me. Everyone was masked up and standing a few feet apart from each other. The colorful foot-shaped silhouettes, marking social-distance waypoints were missing from the concrete. We were bunched up in the rear, and to the side of the building, all coiled up along a thin band of sidewalk squares below construction scaffolding.
It reminded me of the army: being quiet next to strangers, waiting for something to happen. So I chit-chatted with an old Jamaican lady in front of me. She was there helping her coworker, holding a spot in line as her friend went to park her car.
“She’s a little heavy – doesn’t move around too good, ya know?”
She went on to explain how at first, she was hesitant to get the vaccine. But when she saw it work for her husband, she had a complete turnaround. Apparently, he had some large swelling on one of his feet from an unrelated condition, but when he received his first injection, the swelling almost entirely disappeared within an hour. She emphasized the size of it with gestures of her hands. I got the impression it was about half the diameter of a log of lamb meat you often see rotating on a vertical spindle at a gyro joint. “It went right down!” This episode convinced the lady the vaccine contained a secret booster agent – a kind of general palliative against inflammation. God bless those boys at Pfizer! The episode with her husband’s foot swelling clinched it for that lady. She went and got herself vaccinated, and since then, has been a nonstop evangelist to everyone in her social circle (church, family, friends) to go get vaccinated. She even explained to her contacts back in Jamaica that it was completely safe – with the added bit about inflammation. For the rest of our ten minute conversation, I barely said a word – just nodded and smiled. The lady made me feel relieved, and happy to be there.
Getting in the door
Just like last time, when the door opened, about 6-8 people were waved in – kind of like a Disney World ride. I was the last person allowed in. They handed us each clipboards to fill out a basic pre-shot questionnaire, then led us to a waiting area. Within 5 minutes, I was called by one of the young administrators.
One Complication: the card
I didn’t bring my vaccination card. I actually thought the paper wasn’t necessary – just the patient # printed on it. Wrong (sort of). Apparently, for people who want to walk out of their 2nd appointment with tangible evidence of full vaccination will need to bring the original card they were given on the day of their first shot. I started getting worried.
Me…
“Are you saying that I’m going to need to go home, go get that card, and... are you saying that I won’t be able to get my second shot today?”
Her…
“No – the card is just a convenience. For some people who need to show it to their employer as proof of vaccination, they’ve been using those cards. But we’ve been told not to re-issue cards, because people have been selling them. Say you came in and got vaccinated, got your card punched and filled out. Now you walk out of here with proof. You go sell that card to someone who wants to show it to their boss.”
Me…
“OK, I got it. No, I’m not interested in the card. I just want the shot.”
The shot
When it was finally my turn to get the shot, I wound up getting the same nurse: a lady around my age with the last name Carter. She said she remembered me from last time. Per my instructions from my wife, I asked Carter to give me the lot # and expiration date of the vaccine I was about to receive. Where in the holy hell would civilization be without women?
Lot #:
ER8727Expiration date:
July 30, 2021