THE DAY MUFFY AND I GOT VACCINATED NICK VONK
At around the one-year mark in the pandemic, in late February and early March, there were a lot of difficult conversations being had about vaccinations—who should get them, who shouldn’t, and what kind of people were skipping the line. The Philly Fighting Covid story had just surfaced a few weeks prior. I didn’t know it at the time, but my roommate had gotten his first shot two weeks before me—he didn’t tell anyone because he was afraid of the backlash even though he was eligible because of a heart condition. A couple nights before I got the first shot, I saw the Instagram stories of some friends saying that the Philadelphia Convention Center was accepting walk-ins. That’s when the serious, personal conversations began: all of a sudden, it wasn’t theoretical anymore. I called around looking for information and advice. Allison and I were at my parents’ house in Upstate New York—we had to make the decision whether or not to take the three hour drive down, so I called a friend who had gotten the shot the day before; she told me that the lines were short, that doses were being wasted. I called another friend, who had gotten the shot earlier that day, and they talked me through the process from getting in line to walking out the door. I talked to my parents, I talked to Allison, and I decided to go. Allison told me that she’d stay behind; it was happening too fast, and we were both too nervous. We’d all been waiting so long for this moment that I guess we didn’t consider what it’d be like when it got here; the light at the end of the tunnel suddenly Anthology 7
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