SEPTEMBER 10, 2021 – Recently, in the outdoor seating of Boca Rica, a local Mexican restaurant popular for its authenticity, I heard a remarkable story. While ordering, I wore a bright blue, cloth mask bearing the slogan, Make America Intelligent Again.
I’d been invited to lunch by W______, a retired banking client of mine, with whom I’d shared decades of “work-out” deals involving commercial loans that had gone “south,” as it were. Catching up at a “south of the border” restaurant brought back memories.
We had lots of ground to cover—kids and grandkids; travel plans; outside interests (the former banker was once lead guitar player in a band with gigs; the band’s slogan, emblazoned across their visor caps: “If we’re too loud, you’re too old”); and so on.
Being of like minds politically, we expressed mutual outrage over all that’s outrageous. Halfway into our enchiladas we reached the subject of the pandemic, which set us off as if we’d ordered extra hot sauce. Just then, W______ switched gears—or so I thought.
“Have you gotten your shingle shot?” he asked.
“The lame one, yes,” I said, “but not the double-shot that’s supposed to be way more effective.”
“Well, A _____ [W____’s wife] and I decided it was time to get them, but we didn’t want those to interfere with the Covid shots, so we got our Covid shots first—back in February, March—A ______ got Moderna; I got Pfizer. A while later we got our first shingle shots. We had to wait for our second shingle shots.”
As I consumed the side of beans, I wondered where W_______ was going with all this.
“We went to the pharmacy to get our second shingle shots. We filled out the forms, waited in line, did exactly as we were told.”
Something, I suspected, was about to go wrong.
“The pharmacist came out to administer the shots. He was no kid; we later learned he’d had over 20 years’ experience.”
Something was definitely about to go wrong.
“But then . . .” W________ said, raising a generous blob of refried beans.
Just to be safe, I returned my own forkful of beans to my plate.
“. . . the pharmacist handed us each a Covid card. ‘Here are your cards showing you got your second Moderna vaccines,’ the pharmacist told us.”
“What on earth?!” I said.
“Of course, A_____ went haywire. I was too dumbfounded to say anything, but my first thought was, Are we going to grow a third eye?! As it turned out, we didn’t grow a third eye—then or later—and honestly, we felt no ill effects from our unintended booster shots—and in my case, a Moderna booster on top of the Pfizer vaccine. But the pharmacy people were freaking out. We each got a check for $500 without having to sign a release.”
“You should’ve demanded for $50,000 for emotional distress,” I said, “subject only to the condition that you wouldn’t tell more than 10 people.”
“Let’s kill all the lawyers,” said W_________.
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© 2021 by Eric Nilsson
