Flu season in Cape Breton
It’s an Olympic event, or a trip down the hall of mirrors
“Even my hair hurts!” “Hair? When I swallow, it’s razor blades!”
“When I blink, it’s broken glass under my eyelids!”
“You could fry an egg on my skin! And yet I’m freezing to death!”
“I got the flu shot.”
“One minute I’m sweatin’, and the next I’m shiverin’!”
“I nearly coughed up my toenails!”
“You can’t even touch me it hurts!”
“I got a flu shot.”
“I had Charlie horses all night…”
“Charlie horses?”
“I cough? The kids start crying! It’s like a horror movie!”
“Mine keeps coming back! Goes away, comes back. Goes away, come back! It’s like my 24-year-old tryna find work.” “I got a flu…”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. ‘I got a flu shot, I got a flu shot, nah nah nah nah nah.’ Look at you. Everybody look at her! The picture of health. Flu shot. Tell her, Carmie. Tell her.”
“You’re gonna turn into an alien. That’s what you’re gonna do. With them flu shots. It’s a conspiracy! I saw it on a documentary.”
She’s gonna turn into an alien. That’s one reason I won’t get a flu shot. I’ve got other reasons too. Lots of them. For instance, I believe in getting sick from time to time. It makes you stronger and keeps you from getting sick. Besides, what else are you gonna talk about?
Who’s giving those things out? Used to be you went to the clinic. Now you go to the library. The grocery store. You go for a dozen eggs they’re coming at you with a needle. What, the cashier’s ringing you up, asking if you got your points card, your debit card, and she’s snapping on latex gloves and raising the syringe in the air? What kind of union are they running there anyway?
We didn’t have flu shots growing up and we did alright. We had goose grease, mustard poultices, cod liver oil. Sulphur and earwax. Bowls of steaming, scalding hot water to put your face in. Bone marrow soup. (I love the smell of camphor oil in the morning. Smells like… wait. I can’t smell. Or taste.) Boiled onion water. My greatgrandfather swore by garlic and a brisk walk in the bracing cold and he lived to be 35. Reasons! I’ve got plenty! Flu shots. Let me tell you something… OK, first let me tell you this. When I was 11 years old I was on a plane once. Flying in from Halifax. No parent supervision. Just me. Was I scared? Scared of what? That was in the days of the Viscount and the Vanguard, propeller planes. Everybody had time. None of this jet business where you go straight up and come straight down. I was having an urbane conversation with this elegant woman sitting next to me in a Jackie Kennedy dress and a bouffant hairdo, when the pilot came on the speaker and told us it was foggy in Sydney and he’d made two attempts to land and if the next attempt failed he was going to fly to Newfoundland. And then Miss Elegance starts screaming, “We’re all gonna die!”
Well. We didn’t die. Though eventually, I agree, she will have been inevitably proven right.
But to this day? I walk by a medical arts building and all the psychiatrists sit bolt upright, like a goose just walked over their grave. Like the goose that laid the golden egg just got away. Like the goose… .
They could build a career talking about my fears. Rats, clowns, walking dolls, fur coats, flying. Needles.
Oh. I’ll fly. I’ve driven across Canada 16 times. Five days a shot. Once for a dentist appointment. Ridiculous, I know. So, I’ll fly now. I’m making progress.
But did I mention needles?
Mike Finigan, from Glace Bay, is a freelance writer and a former teacher, taxi driver, and railroader, now living in Sydney River. His column appears monthly in the Cape Breton Post. He can be contacted at cbloosechange@gmail.com.