Julianna Mariani ‘24

Pool Enthusiast

At this point, my weekly articles have become life-updates but I had to do another one because (drumroll please)… I got my COVID vaccine last week!! Yes, it’s true. I’m proud of being from Connecticut for two reasons and two reasons only: one is New Haven pizza and the other is that we’ve been rocking this pandemic. Anyway, I went home last week to get it and boy, was it an experience. 

I showed up ten minutes before my appointment slot and the line of cars wrapped around the entire parking lot. I proceeded to wait in line for what felt like an eternity before I was finally allowed to join another one to get into the building. When the man monitoring the door eventually told me I could come inside after a second eternity, I entered a zoo. 

My town has been having its vaccine clinic on the deck of our public pool complex and the amount of people they had crammed onto the cement was certainly not pandemic-proof. If you’ve ever been to an indoor town pool you probably know that the majority is, wait for it, POOL. And by pool, I mean water. The deck is very limited. But for some reason it was somebody’s brilliant idea to have us all get vaccinated there. To make everything that much better, everyone in my tiny town seemed to have chosen 11:20 on a Thursday morning to get the shot. My old school nurse checked me in, the head of the PTA logged me in the system and my friend’s mom scheduled my second dose appointment. At that point I wouldn’t have been surprised if the superintendent was the one sticking needles in people’s arms. 

By the time I sat down to get the shot I had said hi to 15 different people I knew and hadn’t had time to worry about the actual vaccine. It ended up being fine, I didn’t grow two heads or start spitting fire or anything along those lines, I just didn’t move my arm for 24 hours. Not couldn’t, just simply wouldn’t. Other than that I felt pretty invincible.

After I had done my part in saving the world, it was time to wait 15 minutes so the soccer moms could make sure I didn’t pass out. They set up the chairs for this in, I kid you not, an empty kiddie pool. Like things couldn’t have gotten any weirder. I passed the “no collapsing” test with flying colors, although, if I had passed out, it wouldn’t have been from the vaccine, it would have been because of the sweltering pool air and chlorine smell. Once again, I go back to wondering whose genius idea that was. I can think of at least ten other places in my little town that would have been better than that pool deck. Or they at least could have let us go for a quick swim while we waited to leave.