Anyone seen my vaccine?

HELP! I CAN’T REMEMBER MY PASSWORDS

By Neil Offen

I’ve gotten my vaccinations. I was fortunate because I had finally qualified for the shots, having been moved from Tier 2, subdivision C, paragraph 9.1, footnote j, to Tier 1b, folder 3D, group IV6, Boy Scout Troop 384.

Signing up for the shots, as most of us know, was a fairly easy process, assuming you are an experienced computer programmer, you react as quickly as Jeopardy’s Ken Jennings, you have between eight and 11 hours to kill most mornings, you are on the phone while you are on the laptop, you remember where you left your health insurance card and you take crushing disappointment well.

In this area, vaccinations are actually offered through several different sources: the county health department, two local hospital health centers, a number of different pharmacy chains, every other county health department and Cliff’s Meat Market. You have to, of course, sign up at all of them to maximize your chances of actually getting an appointment or a meat loaf.

But before you can sign up, before you can actually get an appointment, you must first fill in this easy form to see if you qualify under the new, revised guidelines, which replace the old revised guidelines which replaced no guidelines at all.

Have you had COVID in the last 14 days?

Have you been tested for COVID? Do you still have the swab stuck up your nose?

If you have been tested for COVID sometime in October, have you received your results yet?

Do you spell COVID with all caps or do you prefer Covid?

Do you think that COVID-19 was one better than COVID-18?

Have you been in contact with anyone who has had COVID? Are those people in Tier 2, subdivision b or Tier 3R, page 8? Was it Ken Jennings?

Do you believe that it’s called COVID-19 because it’s the 19^th time COVID has been mentioned in this form?

Once you have finished that form and actually qualified to get an appointment for the vaccination, assuming there is a dose available for you, which there may not be, and you may have to go to Smithfield to get it, it’s time to fill out the personal data form. This is the form you spend seven minutes filling out while everybody else is actually getting the few remaining appointments.

This form requires you to input your health insurance information, all your phone numbers, including the land line that you got rid of six years ago, your gender identity, your ethnic background and your SAT scores.

You finish the form, you hit continue. The new page says thank you. Now that we have all your information, please choose a location where you are willing to go for your vaccination. Remember, you can’t choose Ireland or Greece or any Caribbean beach. Now choose a time for your vaccination, Greenwich Mean, Pacific Standard or Mountain Dew.

You have chosen all locations at any time. Congratulations, those were the right answers. We don’t have any appointments for you, but you have won a $5 Amazon Gift Card.

Carrboro resident Neil Offen has written humor pieces for a number of different publications, in a number of different countries. His column will appear twice monthly in The Local Reporter.