I’m an introvert who has, after decades of practice, learned to imitate extrovert behaviors. Most of us can do both, but we each have a dominant mode – the behaviors in which we feel most ourselves. During the COVID Apocalypse, it has felt very natural to keep my own company and that of a very small circle of friends.
That said, I do miss interacting with casual acquaintances like the foodies at the grocery store, and folks at various shops. Now and then, I will even engage with a stranger if that individual engages me first. I know, it sounds pathological to some of you.
Susan and I went for our bivalent COVID vaccine shots at Walgreens today. Registering for the shots seemed to take an eternity, and people were queued behind us. The fellow trying to register us was relatively new and unfamiliar with a somewhat clunky automation system. He handed us off to someone more facile with the automation, and a tall young blonde lady took our spot at the counter. It turns out that she was there for her bivalent COVID vaccine, and a Flu shot as well. The fellow behind the counter struggled to get her entered into the system.
It seems that she was a recent transplant from California, and she had not yet transferred her insurance to Texas. Her COVID vaccine was not going to be an issue, but the Flu shot was going to cost her $120 out of pocket unless she could come up with the insurance information that would let the pharmacy bill for its services. She decided to wait to get the information that the pharmacy needed. She looked at me and said, “See, my situation is a complicated mess too.”
I smiled and answered, “There is no task so complex that it cannot be made worse with automation.” She nodded affirmatively. “I’m in technology, and I have to help my mother navigate applications that are just plain disrespectful of the user,” she said. I nodded affirmatively. Susan and I sat down to fill out our pre-vaccination forms. The young lady took a seat and began working on her forms too.
A bit later, I said Miss?” Then I told her that in recent years, the Flu peaks had been occurring in February or even later, and that because the immunity conferred by the Flu vaccine was relatively short-lived, it was probably better to wait a bit before getting the Flu shot. “Maybe December, then?” She asked. “Probably late October would be better,” I answered. She thanked me. Now she would have plenty of time to get the information that she needed from her insurer in California.
The COVID vaccine booster injection, the bivalent Pfizer m-RNA vaccine, was painless. We left the pharmacy vaccinated and I myself feeling that I had satisfied my minimal weekly requirement for novel social interactions.