Last weekend, the Mr. and I drove up to a neighboring county at 6:00 in the morning, to stand in line and wait for the swine flu vaccine. But ... by the time we got there, the line was already over a mile long. That's right. You read that correctly over a MILE long. So, we didn't even bothering waiting. Which was a good thing. They only had 1700 vaccines at that clinic. And later estimated the line was over 5,000 people long. So ... on Tuesday morning, our very own county had a mass clinic. And we decided to try again. Here's what I wrote about on our personal blog later that day:
This morning, we once again set out to try for the H1N1 vaccine ... this time right here in our very own town. We dropped the baby off at Mimi's house (thanks, Mimi!) and then drove down to the public health clinic place. We got in line at about 5:45 am. It wasFREEZING cold. I told the Mr., "alright,next time there's a pandemic and we have to wait in line to get vaccinated in the middle of winter (because the weather today was just like winter), I'm going to come more prepared with blankets and a thermos full of hot chocolate!" Yeah, "next time" there's a pandemic. Right.
Anyway, they were going to open the doors at 8:00 am. And we got there just before 6:00. So two hours. In line. In the freezing cold. I'm glad I wasn't a pioneer. I don't think I could have made it.
Luckily we got there when we did because they're estimating that over 4,000 people showed up in the line! We were about 350 people back. So not bad. It was interesting to watch the police and crowd control trying to maneuver the line. At one point we almost saw a riot. Almost. But for the most part, people were really calm. Ahhh, "Happy Valley," 'tis why I love you so :)
We met some fun friends while waiting in line. The couple in front of us - they're having a baby in January. Well, technically she'shaving the baby, but you know what I mean. We told them that the waiting in line reminded us of when we waited for the Price is Right. Which, of course, turned into a "What?! You guys were on the show? And you actuallyWON THE SHOWCASE?!!" conversation. And, my trusty techno-savvy Mr. pulled out his phone and we ended up watching the entire episode of the show that we appeared on while waiting there. Nice. That killed at least 45 minutes.
We were SO happy by the time 8:30 rolled around and we made it INTO the doors of the building!! I'd never been so happy to have HEAT! And a bathroom! We filled out some paperwork, waited in more lines and then it was our turn ... finally ... at about 9:15.
3 1/2 hours of waiting in line. Just like Disneyland. Or the Price is Right. Only at the "end of the tunnel" instead of there being a light - or a fun ride - or a game show to be won - there wasonly a stab in the arm waiting to be had. But ... a stab that will hopefully be worth it so that our baby doesn't get sick.
Oh - on a side note, it was pretty funny (and sad ... am I horrible for thinking this is funny?) to just sit and listen once we got inside the building. It was noisy - full of CRYING kids!! Poor little things! The Mr. said, "This is like waiting in line for Santa Claus. You wait in line forever, then sit on someone's lap and cry!" Ha! That was my favorite quote of the entire day. So true!
Here's a news article link ... we were there ... in the midst of all that craziness ...
