Blog: You May Feel A Prick

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Starting a new job means a whole new set of COLDS to catch, especially when your new desk is sat underneath the air conditioning so you are sure not to miss ANY infections what are circulating around the system.

Thus I have endured a fortnight of various SNEEZES, SNIFFLES and generally looking blearily at things and saying "Bleh", after which I declared "Enough is enough!" (or, rather, "Enub id enub ACHOO") and decided to try and DO something about it. A few years ago I managed to get a FLU vaccination - I'd been to see my GP about something else and at the end he'd offered me a JAB, just because he had some spares. It was like when you have a sit-down curry and they offer you a Complimentary Liqueur - it is a MINOR HONOUR and thus RUDE to decline. Decline I did not, and what followed was a WONDERFUL winter of not feeling poorly all the time.

I checked with my current GP and was told that I was not eligible for a FREE jab, but that I could always get one from the Chemist next door for the bargain basement price of twelve quid. I really like my local Chemist Shop - they have been VERY helpful on a couple of occasions when my GP surgey has been APPALLING (NB not in a DANGEROUS way just in an hopelessly inept and generally crap way) and have the look of Professional People who have to be polite about the TWITS they seem to have become shackled to.

So it was that I BOWLED in after work last night to find that the Pharmacist On Duty was the Nice Chap who helped me sort out part of the most recent bout of GP crapness (it took TWO WEEKS to get them to get me the RIGHT prescription, I was verging on full-on BASIL FAWLTY RAGE by the end). I proffered a BIG GRIN of recognition, then realised that he probably has to do that sort of thing all the time so was unlikely to remember me. I asked about the JAB and within SECONDS we were filling in a form. "You mean I can get this done NOW?" "Not now," he said, "but in about five minutes, yes." COR!

Five minutes later i was sat in the examination room, answering a few questions about Medical History. EVERY time I am ever in a small room like this I have the URGE to EITHER say "Can you just pop your top off for me?" OR offer to do the same. I am a) convinced this would be HILARIOUS but b) aware that others may not find it so, and so manage to resist, but it was VERY difficult in this case not least because he said "I just need to put the jab in your shoulder."

It was a FEAT OF WILL for me not to say anything. I unbuttoned my shirt and pulled the left sleeve off my shoulder, so I felt like a RENAISSANCE VENUS or perhaps an embodiment of LIBERTE storming a barricade with a breast dangling. "I'll just leave this coquettishly draped here shall I?" I said.

Perhaps pharmacists have training for dealing with PRATS in their examination rooms, I don't know, but he calmly ignored me and jabbed a needle in my arm instead, and we then carried on like SENSIBLE people instead. I did my shirt up, waited for five minutes to check I didn't have an HIDEOUS REACTION (I didn't), and that was it, I could go home!

Apart from making FOOLISH REMARKS it had all gone incredibly smoothly, and I now look forward to an entire season of GLIMMERING HEALTH. And who knows, maybe next time I just WILL offer to pop my top off!

posted 1/11/2016 by MJ Hibbett

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