I wheeled into the parking lot of the Oklahoma County Health Department at 8:55 Monday morning, 50 minutes early for my appointment.
This was my second COVID-19 vaccination and I didn’t want to be late.
I was prepared to stretch out in the back of the minivan for a while if they took a hard line on waiting for your exact time, but there was no need.
“Fill this out and wait in the line right over there,” said the lady who was screening people at the door.
For the first shot, I was in a line that wound through the building and doubled back on itself a couple of times. This time, there were maybe three dozen people ahead of me.
“The appointment times aren’t hard and fast,” another worker reassured me. “They’re more like suggestions.”
Five minutes in line and I was standing in front of a soldier at a table, who stamped my card and sent me to another line that had four people in it.
“Moderna or Pfizer?” asked the lady in charge of the line.
“Moderna.”
“Come with me,” she said, bypassing the five folks who apparently were waiting for Pfizer shots.
She pointed me to Station No. 6, where a lady whose name turned out to be Brooks was waiting.
She asked me a couple more questions, wiped off my left arm and gave me the shot.
Off to the waiting room for 15 minutes and I was done, on the road to Chandler by 9:30, 15 minutes before my appointment time.
That’s not something that happens every day.
I had a few side effects after the first shot, but nothing traumatic. On the scale that a nurse once used - “From 1 to 10, with 10 being eaten by a bear” - I was well below 1.
But I had scared myself by reading on the Internet about side effects, which sometimes can be bad after the second Moderna shot.
Not to worry.
By Monday afternoon, I was the slightest bit tingly, much as if I had an allergy. It was then that I remembered I had bad allergies when I woke up Monday, so that might not have been the Moderna’s fault.
I could move my arm and make it a hurt a little, but it took some effort. Monday evening, I got some chills and had a bit of a tingle in my head and neck.
And that was it. Not bad, all in all.