If you don't get a shot you can say...I've got the flu
By Beth Teitell
Thursday, October 21, 2004
When I saw the notice posted at the Herald about how, due to the vaccine shortage, the company's not going to provide a flu clinic this year, I was secretly happy.
Now that I won't have the shot, I might get ``sick'' for a couple of nonweekend days and do a little shopping. Hey, just following CDC recommendations. I don't want to commit ``presenteeism'' and infect my colleagues, after all.
Or maybe I'll feel myself ``coming down with something'' and skip an entire season of holiday parties and obligations.
The raspy, wheezing phone call complaining of aches, fever, you name it - this get-out-of-jail-free card has gone unused thanks to years of precautionary jabs.
If I play this right, hostesses, family members - and the president of the PTO at my kids' school - will beg me to stay away. ``Don't worry about manning the bake sale on Sunday morning - we'll be fine without you.''
So don't look for me up in Canada, celebrating with maple sugar candy after scoring a needle stick. Why forego an excuse to ``keep up my strength'' by eating comfort food and retiring early at night? Sorry, dear, I'm wiped out. Would you mind folding the laundry this evening?
And bye-bye gym. Someone as vulnerable to germs as I am shouldn't lift weights previously lifted by others who've also not been vaccinated.
``May I speak for the phobic?'' a shotless friend asked. ``Although they say that getting a flu shot is no guarantee that you won't get the flu, I used to get really, really nervous when I got sick despite getting the shot. Is this an uber-flu? Dengue fever? Ebola? Something so horrible that a preventative jab can't stop the army of germs swarming through my system? Sleepless nights, I can tell you.''
Speaking of the phobic: This vaccine shortage could really work in my favor at restaurants. Whenever I dine out, I'll let it slip that I've got a slight headache and a tickle in my throat. That should cut down on the requests for a sip of my Shiraz or attempts to muscle in on my cheesecake.
As you can imagine, when I read that some New Yorkers are working connections to score the latest must-have item (a shot), I thought that's the last thing I'd do. But then an idea hit me - like a shot in the arm.
A secret shot would provide the best of both worlds: You're physically healthy but within your rights to be ``sick.'' Only your back-alley doctor knows for sure.
I'm wondering if that's what Bush and Kerry are doing. Both have said they won't get a shot, but you know footage of at least one of them with his sleeve rolled up will hit the Internet sometime before Election Day.
Meanwhile, I'm bracing myself for the inevitable buzz-kill: additional doses are supposed to arrive in January.
