FLU SHOT - PART II

So on Wednesday I decided that Kayla and I needed a little quality girl time.

After school, we got in the van and headed out - not for shoe shopping but...wait for it...are you ready....?

FLU SHOTTING

Since I could think of nothing for which Kayla needed to be punished in the past week, I decided to spare her the Walgreens experience and instead headed for our nearest walk-in clinic.

Oh the heartache of having the best family doctor, ever, 21 miles away.

But really, it didn't matter where we were going; what mattered was the mother/daughter bonding time we were giving ourselves, right?

Pulling into the parking lot, I was somewhat encouraged because there did not appear to be many cars there. Counting the staff, I figured the cars represented maybe 10-15 people who might be in various stages of their walk-in doctoring.

My spirits sunk, however, when we walked into the waiting room and the first thing we saw was a stainless steel stand holding surgical masks, tissues and a giant bottle of hand sanitizer.

And I heard the theme from Jaws playing in my head.

There was a young mother with a little girl in line ahead of us at the sign-in desk. The not-so-subtle sign in lady said really loudly "So she's getting a flu shot?" And that poor sweet little girl turned her head and looked up at her mom like she was suffering the biggest betrayal of her life. Her lower lip began to quiver, her face scrunched up in a heartbreaking pout, and then tears began to fall silently down her precious little cheeks. I wanted to take that stainless steel rack and soundly thrash that mean lady. That poor little girl had a long wait ahead of her to dread the needle and obviously her mother had wanted to spare her that. I bet after work that lady went to that little girl's house and kicked her puppy.

Not one to be pessimistic (ahem) I thought SURELY at the start of flu season they had a system set up such that seekers of the flu shot were being called back lickity split while the miserably sick were required to wait a minimum of 90 minutes.

Because fair is fair, people.

Turns out I was wrong.

So terribly, painfully wrong. I soon realized that EVERYBODY was going to wait a minimum of 90 minutes. Escpecially scared little girls waiting to be poked with a needle.

After signing in and checking all the "No" boxes on Kayla's flu shot form we settled in for what I still hoped would be a short wait.

Kayla read her book and made small talk with a little boy who was probably in fifth or sixth grade. (That girl really has a way with kids) I sat and stared into space. I tried not to look at the little girl across the room who was curled into a ball in her chair silently crying while her mother whispered in her ear. It was hard to ignore her. I also couldn't seem to ignore all those germs that were jumping onto my body.

Because this room was full of really sick people. People slumped over in their chairs like they were made of noodles. People whose eyes were red and puffy. People with little piles of used tissues lying beside them on the chair. A lady on the cell phone telling somebody "Yeah, I'm swollen all over." My only distraction was a little boy who was about two. He would catch my eye, smile, cover his face and giggle. He was painfully cute. So cute it made my arms ache to hold him in my lap. But that would not have been wise.

Germs, ya know.

His cuteness was countered, though, by the little boy of about 7 who spent 20 minutes doing handstands in the middle of the waiting room floor. I kept wondering why somebody, you know, like a parent of his, didn't roll up a magazine and pop him on the back of his baggy little jeans after he was told to stop and he didn't. But I'm mean like that.

So we waited about 25 minutes before I decided we had picked up all the germs we could - there were no more germs to be found here - and I politely told the receptionist to take our name out of the line up because we decided not to wait.

We high tailed it back to the van where I made Kayla bathe in hand sanitizer. There was so much hand sanitizer floating through our van, the poor girl had to open her window to breathe lest it bring on an asthma attack. "Geeesh, Mom!"

Then we stopped by the marine office where I had hoped to catch my son's recruiter because I had a question. But we had no luck there, so we walked next door to the new Bible book store and bought my friend and her husband some presents (because he is fighting cancer - please pray for them) and ourselves some CD's and books.

We arrived home just in time for Kayla to leave with a friend to go eat Chinese food for dinner, while I made a note to call our doctor's office to let them know we'd be stopping in for a flu shot.

All in all, I'd say this girls day out ranks right up there with our last trip to the dentist. Plus, I'm still in the running for mother of the year.