Getting My Shot

We drove to Casa Grande, 57 miles and 58 minutes away from home.  It was an overcast afternoon, with more traffic than we'd expected.  We were anxious, for no reason, but there it was.

It was 50 miles on the highway and 7 miles on two lane roads past trailers and rusted wrecks and flea markets.  The Walgreens was on what we call a Rte 13 - the McDonalds, Denny's, motel, car wash and other traveler's needs road that bordered Ithaca.   

We parked, double masked up, and entered a store together.  It was a moment - we haven't been in a store together since our last grocery outing on March 12th.  There was a short line waiting at the pharmacy; TBG took himself back to the car to stay safe.  I waited as the couple at the window filled out their paperwork (it was possible to do this before you arrived, thus saving everyone time and energy), and then as the lovely pharmacy clerk explained to the next customer, an Hispanic gentleman of indeterminate age who thought that his presence in line was enough to secure a vaccine.  She was patient.  He was sad.

I handed in my papers and got my shot and we drove home and everything was fine.... except my heart.

Everyone in line to be vaccinated was white and well dressed.  We'd overcome the obstacles registering and searching presented, and found ourselves with the golden tickets.  The vaccination sites located in underserved neighborhoods don't seem to be doing much to serve those who live in those neighborhoods.  

Scarlet's friends in Manhattan took two trains and a bus to Bushwick, a less than savory neighborhood in Brooklyn.  There, surrounded by dismal poverty, they and other well dressed white people received their vaccinations, surrounded by those less fortunate residents of the neighborhood.

There's something really wrong with this picture.