{One Mom’s Opinion} Why I Got The COVID Vaccine

What I will not be doing here is telling you to get yours. Nope, I’m not interested in telling you how to live your life and I am very confident that you are not interested in me, a relative stranger, doing that. What I will do, though, is share with you the reasons why I chose to get the jab, the vax, the new wave of RNA.

I’m selfish. I really don’t have time to get sick. I work full-time (plus writing with a few side gigs), and I have two children, a husband, and a house all of which require some level of my intervention to keep functioning. I certainly do not have time to quarantine at home for a week waiting to see if I have COVID. I’m not interested in homeschooling my children during another lock down and if I were to be in that situation again, I’m certain that they would not learn a thing other than how to re-enact the Lord of the Flies in the backyard. My money is on my honey badger of a daughter voting her older brother off of her island.

I hate wearing a mask. I get that there are people who do this on a daily basis for their job and my hats off to them because I really hate it. The loops get caught in my earrings. My glasses get fogged up so I either have to be somewhat blind and masked or mostly blind and masked. And frankly I feel muzzled when I wear one. So, if my price for being able to give up the mask of infamy is to get two shots, then hell yes, sign me up.

I want to travel. I have not ventured farther than Lafayette in the last 18 months. Now, on the plus side, I have accrued so much vacation time at work that I could actually afford to go on a vacation, at least from a work stand point. That is the only plus side. Airplane travel still requires masks and is full of people behaving badly. Even the remote hint of having to quarantine upon arrival at my destination or upon getting home is time I don’t have to spend. That alone is enough to keep me planted firmly here in Mandeville.

I want to go back to my office. I have a very nice office. I get to see other adults there and I can use my lunch break as a break, and not the time to clean the kitchen or do laundry. I have a closet full of clothes that I don’t wear and they look sad because I never pick them.

I want $1,000,000. I don’t know about you, but I could sure as hell use a million dollars. Even after taxes, it would be a solid chunk of change and I literally did not have to pay anything to be entered other than get my shots. And the odds are much better than playing Mega Millions because we all know that no one in Louisiana ever wins.

I let a bunch of other people go first and I was rewarded with stickers. When something new comes out, I usually hang back and wait for others to try it out for a while. The irony is that by the time I was actually eligible in mid-March (I was too young, too healthy, and my job was not important enough), the vaccine had been getting into arms since December. My parents, in-laws, husband, and numerous friends had all gotten it by that point and none showed the slightest hint of weird twitches, chip activation, or other problems. Also, I am a grown ass woman and I am a sucker for stickers.

Not particularly altruistic reasons, but there you go.