How the covid vaccine almost killed me

So, I was talking on the phone with a friend the other day and she said she just got covid, and I realized that I knew a few other people who’d had covid recently, and this season’s version of the vaccine had come out. I scheduled an appointment at the doctor’s office the next day for covid and flu shots. But when I got there, all they had was the flu shot—the covid shots hadn’t come in yet. The nurse recommended I try doing it through a pharmacy. I kinda forgot about it but then a couple days later I remembered. I went on the CVS website and it was really easy to schedule . . . actually they had an appointment in 20 minutes on West 57 St in midtown. (Amusingly enough, when I typed in my location, it gave the closest locations as some places in New Jersey—I guess they were measuring as-the-crow-flies distance rather than travel time.) 20 minutes doesn’t leave much margin of error so I threw on my shoes, grabbed my bike, zipped over to the subway, went down to 59 St, and biked over to the corner where the CVS was . . . I wasn’t sure which way to go and I couldn’t see any street numbers so I took a guess and turned left, then I saw the street numbers were too low . . . I was in a real hurry now, I didn’t want to get there too late and have them retract my appointment, also I had to return home in about 40 minutes, so I decided to turn around right there in the middle of the block. As I was making that U-turn I slowed down to find a break in the traffic going the other direction and I saw a city bus barreling right at me! Fortunately there was some space in the cars so I could get into the traffic and I didn’t get run over.

Everything else went well. I got the shot and I got home in time for my 4pm meeting. But I almost got run over by a bus (entirely my fault, not the bus driver’s at all). So that’s my story: the vaccine almost killed me.

I’m reminded of the principle that the most dangerous part of a flight is the ride to the airport.