Vaccine shortage makes me sick

Being Frank, by Frank Ameduri

Judging from the terrifying "flu" maps on television news broadcasts and the fact that everyone in the office dives under desks the moment anyone sneezes or coughs, you'd think the Black Plague was back in town. In fact, it's just flu season in the age of doom and gloom.

"You'd better get a flu shot," my girlfriend warned. "This is a bad one."

At first I didn't pay much attention to her, not because I'd like to have the flu, but because I'm chicken of needles. I'd rather slam my eye in the car door than get a booster shot. I once stepped on a nail when I was a kid.

"Looks like he'll need a tetanus shot," someone said.

"I don't want a shot."

"Would you rather get lockjaw?" my mother asked.

I didn't answer, but in truth, I would much rather have gotten Lockjaw, whatever that is.

This is a tough strain of the flu, though. Perfectly healthy people who can still blow out their birthday candles without any help are dying from it, so I finally relented. I called the doctor.

"My girlfriend says I should get a flu shot, Doc."

"Indeed you should," he said. "This is a nasty bug -- not to be taken lightly."

"When can I come in?"

"You can't."

It turns out they've run clean out of flu vaccine. How do you do that? Isn't it something you manufacture? I mean, it's not like they have to use specially-trained pigs to sniff vaccine out from under giant fig trees, do they? They put some bugs in a test tube, whirl it around a few times and bottle it up. It's production. It's what we do.

There's no shortage of Tic Tacs during a halitosis outbreak. There's no black market styling gel during the windy season. We recently ordered blinking snowman noses, and the supplier had way more than they needed … and the noses are manufactured in China, where people rarely even wear blinking noses. When we ordered the noses the guy asked how many gross we wanted.

"We just need four noses."

"Four noses? Nobody buys just four noses! We got more than six billion blinking noses over here. I don't even lick a stamp for less than two gross."

I say, put the blinking snowman nose company in charge of flu vaccine next year. We'll have so much vaccine people will be vaccinating their goldfishes. We'll be able to protect our houseplants and our lucky sneakers from the flu.

I hate to be in the position of begging for a shot. It sets a bad precedent for someone who's spent a lifetime cultivating the image of an acute inoculaphobe. But I'm scared about this thing. As bad as I don't want to be punctured, I want the flu even less. I don't want to die from body aches and a head full of mucus. All the blinking snowman noses in China can't make up for a death like that. Besides, it's just embarrassing for someone who's still relatively close to his prime. At my age you expect to die from something a little sexier -- like getting caught in the mechanism of the futon or choking on finger foods during the Super Bowl. You don't want to leave your eulogizer to say, "With all the crazy risks he took, who could've imagined snot would take him down?" I'll take the shot before I'll be remembered like that.

Fueling my fear is the fact that everybody I know is sick right now. Every kid who attended our office Christmas party got sick the next day. Now all their parents are sneezing and hacking, and hanging around the office … touching and breathing on things.

With no chance of getting a flu shot, I've employed the only defense I could think of. I've come to work the last three days covered in blinking snowman noses employed as a shield against invading microorganisms. I don't know if it will work, but I have managed to raise the ire of the FCC. They claim small aircraft attempt to land on the Palmer-Wasilla Highway every time I go out for a breath of fresh air.

"Fine," I said. "I'll take the noses off if you turn me onto your secret stash of flu vaccine." They said they'd get back to me.

Frank Ameduri is willing to pay good money for a black-market flu shot.