Saturday, May 8, 2021

How about those vaccinations, eh?

 Consistency is not a great American virtue of late. The COVID vaccine debate is a good example. I received my shots in March. No big deal. If you aren't getting yours, fine. I don't care. But the arguments against strike me as silly and often hypocritical.

For those who say "my body is a temple" so they aren't going to put a couple milliliters of a FDA-approved vaccine in their body, I've seen your temple hanging over your sweatpants at Walmart. It's built out of french fries, glued together with corn syrup and sprinkled with Cheetos. You wouldn't know the food pyramid from the Great Pyramid at Giza.

I'm a bit of a health nut the past few years. Certainly wasn't always that way. I grew up swimming in a cattle tank (the cows don't always face out) and getting sprayed down with RAID before walking beans in the evening by Selma Hansen (not Hayek, unfortunately). I started chewing Copenhagen at 16. Then I spent a decade of decadence consuming enough tequila and Old Milwaukee to keep Mexico and Wisconsin solvent through the 1980s. So I figure a little potassium chloride isn't going to do me in.

Then there is the "I only consume natural ingredients" crowd that will chow down every untested but friend-on-Facebook-approved supplement at the health food store. Oh look, here's some opossum sperm that will remove wrinkles. As Billy "Crash" Craddock would sing: Rub it in, rub it in. Here's some poison castor bean powder that will clear up my toenail fungus! Gobble, gobble. 

Or the not-so-natural-stuff: Viagra! Munch, munch. Gimme my Zoloft; I'm depressed.

I want the state to legalize weed so I can stay stoned through life, but don't tell me to get a shot that might save my life or that of my grandma. Instead, pass me a menthol cigarette or the vape pen with the newest flavor: Willie Nelson's socks.

You're worried about what you put in your body? Give me a break.

Ladies, lay off the Scensty then if you're so concerned with what goes in your bod. Maybe research what's in those scents before you inhale. (Hint: it ain't all pumpkin and dandelions.)

Lately I've been following these athletes who don't want to get the shot. Okay, fine. Then also knock off the illegal steroids. Quit visiting GNC for every testosterone-booster, pre-workout juice and after-workout powder. Pump iron like a real man. Go aunatural there too.

My body is a temple. Ha. Pass me the meth pipe, say over 12 million Americans. Over 36 percent are obese. Fifteen percent smoke cancer sticks. Over 6 percent have alcohol problems. About 88,000 people die of alcohol-related causes annually in the United States.

Four out of five Americans are prescribed antibiotics every year (antibiotics approved by the same government as the COVID vaccine, by the way). CDC estimates about 47 million antibiotic courses each year are prescribed for infections that don't need antibiotics. But I'm not going to get that COVID shot because I'm free! I'm not a sheeple! I watch what goes in my body. Pfft.

Don't get me wrong. I don't think we're at the point where the government has to mandate the COVID vaccine like they do childhood vaccinations. But it won't be long and private business will and, having been a small business owner, I'm fine with that. If Delta says you need a vaccine to fly, so be it. Drive to Florida instead. If Menards wants to see your vaccination card to enter and you don't have one, go to Runnings. If you want to go to the next Bruno Mars concert and he says you need to be vaccinated, good on him. Go see Miley Cyrus.

I feel good having had my shots. A little more secure. More free, believe it or not. I realize they aren't 100 percent foolproof. But I'm a gambling man and like my odds having it while I mingle among the crowds. Because I've seen those crowds, I know people in those crowds, and unlike some in those crowds I'll listen to my doctor before I listen to my Facebook friends who think they're doctors.

A little COVID vaccine for a little peace of mind? Straight into my veins, baby!

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