A Reason To Get Up Early In The Time Of Covid
This is a story about my cousin who will remain semi anonymous and here after referred to by her initials CC.
I have known her all my life, she is a little older than me and is my first cousin. She often does things and says things that I find highly amusing. She has a graduate degree and had a very responsible job. The following story leads me to question the validity of her education and the judgement of the New York City Board of Education Division of Administrators.
I had taken CC and her husband to get their first vaccination shots and the time for her second shot was at hand. The plan was for her and her husband to take an Uber to my house (she lives about 40 minutes north of me), arriving at 7:30 AM and I would drive them to the vaccination site at Hard Rock Stadium in North Miami (about 35 minutes south of me).
At 7:30 I received a call from her saying they were lost. They had the correct address, but she was sure they were at the wrong house. I went outside and there they were in front of my house. She had insisted it was not my house and was telling the driver to move on to another. I had a sense of Deja Vu, since she had done the exact same thing three weeks before.
Nevertheless, I loaded them into my car and we set off for the vaccination site.
We arrived at what was the site three weeks ago and found it empty. There were no people, cars, tents or any other indication that this was a vaccination site. They had moved and not told anyone (Deja Vu for me as I had a similar experience when I was 18 and away from home, but that is another story).
I left the location looking for signs directing me to the new site. No signs to be seen.
I saw a police car and pulled up next to him. I asked for directions (proving guys do ask for directions, contrary to many slanderous statements by members of the opposite sex). He reluctantly lowered his window and told me to make a right turn into the stadium and follow the sign. I made the right, but the only sign evident was for Testing, not Vaccinating.
Once again I found a policeman and he assured me I was in the right place and to follow the sign for Covid Testing and all would become clear. I followed his advice with trepidation.
I was pleasantly surprised when a sign appeared saying Vaccines on the right, Testing on the left. I got onto one of two lines offered for vaccinations, and settled in for a wait.
There was an older lady in front of us who had taken upon herself the duty to monitor the line for people who were there for testing. Periodically she would identify someone next to her by their younger look and get out of her car to tell them they were on the wrong line. Some might call this behavior, “performing a public service”, I thought of it as “busybodying” and the “desire to be in charge”. She also held up the line while she was out of her car giving advice. An annoying side effect punishable by a horn honk.
While waiting I asked my cousin if she had her consent forms filled out properly. She advised me they were in order. CC then asked me if she had filled it out correctly when they asked if this was her first shot. She had said “yes” even though it was the second. A minor but silly mistake, easily corrected.
She was also nervous about being able to get the shot since she wasn’t given a specific time to get the shot, only the day. I assured her it wouldn’t be a problem. I also requested she not offer information or speak with the people screening applicants as she has a tendency to Babble and Ramble, confusing things. Her husband said she could only give “Her name, rank and serial number”. These instructions quickly came into play in an unexpected manner.
We reached the final screening station. Her husband’s consent form was easily scanned and approved. She was having a problem.
Three times the attendant tried to scan her application and three times he seemed to have difficulty. He kept asking her. “Is this your name?” She answered in the affirmative followed by his performing another scan and repeating the question. He finally accepted what his tablet was showing after the scan and we moved on to the vaccination station.
I asked her what was the problem?
“He kept asking me if that was my correct name”, she said. “He asked me if this was my correct middle name”.
“Why would he do that,” I inquired.
“He asked if it really was “Nun?” she replied.
“Nun?” I said, “your middle name is Nun?”
“No, I don’t have a middle name. So when I filled out the form, where it asked for the middle name I put down NONE. Everybody who doesn’t have a middle name would do the same”, she said proudly.
“No they wouldn’t”, I replied, laughing along with her husband.
Indignantly CC insisted she was correct.
“Why didn’t you correct him?” I asked.
“You two told me to keep my mouth shut and not tell them anything, so I didn’t want to tell him why I did that. It’s ok, now he stupidly thinks my middle name is NONE. What is wrong with him?”, she stated.
By this time N (her husband) and I were laughing loudly. We found this really funny.
We tried to tell her that it was not necessary to put anything in that space or if she had to, to put N/A. She denied our advice and insisted she had done the right thing.
I offered to call her Noni from now on. That was greeted with “you are a f…..g idiot”.
N and I next told her that since she hadn’t corrected the attendant, he had entered NONE into the official record as her middle name. That would result in her passport, Drivers License, and all other identifiers as being incorrect.
“They probably won’t let you out of your house until this is corrected”, I inferred directly.
Once again words like “f…..g. idiot and b…ard” were heard loudly and often.
N and I continued to laugh about this for most of the trip back to their home in Delray.
I though this level of amusement more than payed back my very early rising to help them out.
