Tête-à-têtanus
Today I got a tetanus booster shot at a local Walgreen's. Which is somehow so uncannily close to feeling totally mundane and commonplace without being so that it seems to have (has) broached the usual personal life barriers that filter what of mild posts I make.
It's also the first tetanus shot I've gotten that I remember getting. Which had been popping up in my day-to-day consciousness for the past two months, since (along with a couple aspects of my upcoming summer, which seem to call for being tetanus-protected) I cut myself on a few pieces of metal recently, and mashed one of my fingers in a metal lock-holding window-gate thing (according to the internet "mashing" injuries are particularly prone to giving cause to tetanus).
My only tetanus-related memories are:
a) a neighbor (next-door neighbors, the ones in the "dislike" column because of a certain car crash that ruined (aka made awesome) my 6th grade class picture) kid stepping on a rusty nail in his backyard and needing to get a tetanus shot afterwards
b) being asked if my tetanus boosting was in order, before a Boy Scout trip at the Philmont Ranch, when I was 14, and having a parent-affirmed answer of "I don't see how it couldn't be." (Maybe I didn't talk quite that stiltedly back then, but you get the idea.)
So I wasn't eager to add "that time I got tetanus when I was, like, in my late 20s" to the list. I don't have much love for the American middle-class way of life, as it pertains to health care, or for the corporations that I mostly blame for most of the world's ills. I also don't have health insurance. But wanted me some tetanus resistance. So I went to a clinic at a national corporate pharmacy/convenience chain store, because it was the obviousest and cheapest way to get the shot that I could find, paying $63 for 10 more years of tetanus boostification (that's only $6.30/year!).
During my visit, I had a very nice conversation with a nurse practitioner about bicycle riding in Miami (and the hazards thereof) and about planning long distance cross-state bicycle trips (and the pleasures thereof). Other than having to check in to the clinic via a touchscreen computer (a helpful robot!) the experience was altogether more pleasant than either my former (corporate degree-mill) university's health center or the hospital where I used to go for general care in Boston. Which leaves me feeling all kinds of different what-the-fuckednesses. So I'm confused, but at least I'm now protected from the dread-specter of tetanus.
It's also the first tetanus shot I've gotten that I remember getting. Which had been popping up in my day-to-day consciousness for the past two months, since (along with a couple aspects of my upcoming summer, which seem to call for being tetanus-protected) I cut myself on a few pieces of metal recently, and mashed one of my fingers in a metal lock-holding window-gate thing (according to the internet "mashing" injuries are particularly prone to giving cause to tetanus).
My only tetanus-related memories are:
a) a neighbor (next-door neighbors, the ones in the "dislike" column because of a certain car crash that ruined (aka made awesome) my 6th grade class picture) kid stepping on a rusty nail in his backyard and needing to get a tetanus shot afterwards
b) being asked if my tetanus boosting was in order, before a Boy Scout trip at the Philmont Ranch, when I was 14, and having a parent-affirmed answer of "I don't see how it couldn't be." (Maybe I didn't talk quite that stiltedly back then, but you get the idea.)
So I wasn't eager to add "that time I got tetanus when I was, like, in my late 20s" to the list. I don't have much love for the American middle-class way of life, as it pertains to health care, or for the corporations that I mostly blame for most of the world's ills. I also don't have health insurance. But wanted me some tetanus resistance. So I went to a clinic at a national corporate pharmacy/convenience chain store, because it was the obviousest and cheapest way to get the shot that I could find, paying $63 for 10 more years of tetanus boostification (that's only $6.30/year!).
During my visit, I had a very nice conversation with a nurse practitioner about bicycle riding in Miami (and the hazards thereof) and about planning long distance cross-state bicycle trips (and the pleasures thereof). Other than having to check in to the clinic via a touchscreen computer (a helpful robot!) the experience was altogether more pleasant than either my former (corporate degree-mill) university's health center or the hospital where I used to go for general care in Boston. Which leaves me feeling all kinds of different what-the-fuckednesses. So I'm confused, but at least I'm now protected from the dread-specter of tetanus.
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