This morning, I drove out to Dodger Stadium — my first time there since Sandy Koufax was pitching. I thought maybe they'd let me play Shortstop or at least throw out the first pitch but it turns out, they aren't playing baseball there these days. They are however giving out COVID-19 vaccinations and I figured, "Well, I'm here. I might as well get one."
Actually, I had a 12:30 appointment but we got there at Noon, "we" being me and my friend/assistant Jane. In an uncommon show of cleverness, we stopped en route at Philippe's the Original (a sacred downtown restaurant) and picked up a couple of their famous French Dip sandwiches. Waiting in the drive-thru line at Dodger Stadium is much more tolerable when you're chowing down on a double-dipped Philippe's sandwich.
So I sense some of you have questions…
How long did it take? The vast Dodger Stadium parking lot is set up with multiple lanes defined by orange traffic cones. They send you in a wild variety of "S" curves that eventually direct everyone to one of several lanes where cheery folks are only too happy to inject you while you remain in your vehicle. From the moment we got there until I got the shot was about 75 minutes. They then make you wait fifteen minutes to see if you have an adverse reaction or turn into a werewolf.
Did you have an adverse reaction or turn into a werewolf? Nope. Not yet, anyway and it's been about two and a half hours. After the fifteen minute wait, they give you a card proving you got your shot and it tells you when to get the second dose. Then you get to go.
Which vaccine did you get and did it hurt? The Moderna and no, it didn't. I didn't even know the lady had given it to me until she told me she'd done it. No pain, no soreness, no nothing. She applied a band-aid but I just peeked under it and I can barely see where I was vaccinated.
Was it crowded? Very. And I have to say I was impressed by how many people they were processing. The amount of time it took seemed very reasonable once you took that into consideration. Somebody did a real good job designing the system.
Did anything else happen? I asked one of the nurse-like people if I could get a couple of Dodger Dogs with mustard. She said, "Oh, wouldn't that be wonderful? They feed us real healthy food and that's fine but sometimes you want something greasy and fattening." Jane told her that on the way there, we'd stopped at Philippe's and got French Dip sandwiches. The nurse-like lady moaned and said, "Now I'm going to be craving one of them all day."
I am very glad I got that done and I'll get Dose #2 in four weeks. Of course, I'm still going to mask up and avoid most people but the first dose is supposed to be somewhere between 50% and 82% effective against the coronavirus. And it's 100% effective against my physician telling me I'm a friggin' idiot for not getting this done.