Diary of a Shopkeeper, 13th June
I was lucky enough to get my second vaccine last week. As with the first jag three months ago, the experience was smooth and almost painless. Three cheers for the NHS and especially for everyone in Orkney contributing to making this enormous logistical effort look like a walk in the Bignold.
When I say almost painless, I’m quibbling really. It wasn’t the doctor’s fault that, as she said, ‘You’ve got a thick skin,’ and it took her a couple of attempts to pierce my hide.
But when she did, beuy beuy, I felt the goodness coursing through my veins. I returned to the shop full, not just of Pfizer, but of a new-found confidence and optimism about the future.
How could 0.5ml of a colourless fluid alter my mood so dramatically? After all, that’s only 1/250 of a small glass of white wine. Or 1/1136 of a pint of pale ale. Powerful stuff!
Of course, I know that the vaccine isn’t a silver bullet. It won’t stop every virus every time. But it does greatly reduce the chances of Covid infection, and seems to lessen the severity of symptoms if you are unlucky enough to pick up the virus despite the jab’s best efforts.
So much of coping with the pandemic has been about mitigating risk rather than eliminating it entirely. This runs counter to what we’d been led to expect from a thousand sci fi movies. In those, when disaster strikes it’s cataclysmic for the vast majority of the population: meteorites wipe out whole cities in a flash, alien invaders crush apartment blocks, inhabitants and all, and mysterious viruses kill the whole population and/or turn them into zombies.
All, that is, except the most famous actors in the leading roles. They usually emerge heroically unscathed, except for artfully dishevelled hair and a small graze on a well-chiselled cheekbone from that scene where they dodged the flying masonry.
But, surprise surprise, the real-life experience of living through a disaster movie scenario isn’t like that. Rather than total destruction or a graze on the cheek, what most of us experience is something inbetween: a long list of discomforts and inconveniences…
Perspex screens on shop counters so it’s hard to hear what the person on the other side is saying.
Hand-sanitisers by every door, some of which dribble out a drop or two, others unexpectedly squirting a stream of vodka-scented liquid down the front of your breeks.
Masks that make your chin sweat and your glasses fog – that is when you’re not losing them just as you’re about to step inside a shop. (At which point someone pounces to post on Have a Pleep Orkney to girn about folk throwing masks away on the pavement. I didn’t throw it away, I accidentally wheeched it out when I went for my car keys!)
Rules on how many households can get together in public, or in private – frequently changing rules too.
A slight but lingering nervousness about venturing out in public…
These are not the kinds of problems that Tom Cruise or Sigourney Weaver have to worry about:
‘Hey Tom, let’s go kick some alien butt.’
‘I’m not sure Sigourney, I’m a peedie bit nervous of mixing with unkan folk.’
‘Good point, Tammo. Also, I’ve got to do my recycling, and I hear there’s still big queues at the dump on a Saturday.’
But, it turns out, these petty annoyances are the defining features of this real-life calamity, for all except the few dozen folk in the county unlucky enough to actually test positive.
At the end of the Hollywood film, the sun rises over a wrecked cityscape, columns of white smoke drifting into blue sky. Our heroes, battle-worn but unscathed, walk off into the morning light, and a bright new future bereft of zombies. Grateful citizens emerge from ruined buildings, give a cheery wave to Tom Cruise, and start sweeping up the pavement in front of their shop. Everything is suddenly okay!
In reality, we move out of pandemic-land just as we wandered into it. In fits and starts, three steps forward, two steps back. Jinking to the side then back on the straight and narrow. Recovery will take more than a morning, more than a summer. It’ll be years before the wreckage is cleared away and rebuilding is complete.
Yes, I have a thick skin. I hope you do too. We need it to cope with all the flying masonry right now.
But those two little needles, with their two 0.5ml doses, are an injection of pure optimism. Farewell alien zombies! The worst is over, we’re walking into a bright sunshiny future. And I have a slight graze on my upper arm to prove it.
This diary appeared in The Orcadian on 16th June. Other diaries continue to appear weekly. I am posting them in this blog a few days after each newspaper appearance, with added illustrations., and occasional small corrections or additions.