Coronavirus streets in Manchester - LXXV

Shopping around for pricks

At lunchtime today I had been phoning around to find a pharmacy, chemist, apothecary, or even a shamanist grotto offering the NHS Seasonal Vaccination for COVID-19, normally termed the booster shot.

I found a chemist location that did not have a pharmaceutical reference in their name suggesting they could give the shot today when I called yesterday afternoon. As I did not want another wasted journey, I called again this morning and was told, that if I arrived before 5:00PM, I could get the jab.

It would have been a 35-minute walk, but I got on a bus and the area looked familiar enough even as it is miles away from where I live. When I got there, I was asked to sit in a waiting area where I was the only one for the vaccine booster.

Those were big bulging lips

Soon, a young lady, trim and straining to be polite came out and asked for my name and other particulars, I noticed that all my data was presented on the computer she was working from. Her makeup was light, but it appeared she had gone for the prominent lip-boosted look, highly exaggerated and heavy with lip gloss, you could say the lips belonged on a Barbie doll, but what do I know about ladies’ lips?

The section where I was to be given the jab was in the front of the store by the window with a one-way screen, you could see out but those on the street could not see in. Sometimes, you need to be convinced that is really the case. People may not see the way you see things, and that includes lips too.

This would be the 8^th COVID-19-related prophylactic jab, 6 of the Pfizer type and 2 of the Moderna type mRNA injections.

She did not introduce the hypodermic needle with the customary, “Just a scratch,” that you hear nurses say when you are about to take the prick of a needle. It is a thinner needle, and the deed is done before you know it.

It went into my upper left arm, and in the little banter we had after being injected she said people had been coming from far away to get the vaccine. There is an inventory management issue as not all listed chemists have stocks to serve their communities.

A busman living for trouble

Back at the bus stop for my return journey, there was a bus in a minute, and it did arrive as I tried to wave it down to stop. The driver looked in my direction and shrugged, not even slowing down at all. I overlooked the slight as there was another bus scheduled to arrive, but someone standing at the bus stop with me and another walking up to the bus stop who put out his arm to wave it to a stop both said the bus had enough time to stop for me.

Much as I said I was not bothered, they read more into the event, apart from calling the driver unprintable names, they both indicated the driver was racist, these were two white men who had witnessed something probably unfair, cruel, or unjust, and they were quite riled up. The other man who attempted to wave down the bus said he would report the issue.

At which point, I posted a tweet to the Bee Network that runs the bus services in Greater Manchester just as the next and now, double-decker bus arrived and stopped for me to board. The jab seemed to exacerbate a sense of tiredness affecting my concentration, and as that wore off, it is just the slight pain in the area that suggests I had my dermis punctured earlier today.