Colm O'Regan: 'I never saw so many men looking shook by the arrival of that early stage bald patch'

This week Colm got his vaccine in Dublin: "Obviously I’ll get a Cork shot for my booster. A bit like having the church wedding after the registry office."

The vaccine queue. I don’t think I’ve ever been in a queue like it. It didn’t have the hallmarks of a normal queue. I wasn’t wondering if there was another shorter queue. I wasn’t glaring at someone who looked like they had skipped the queue. I wasn’t regretting that I should have come here four hours earlier because ‘they’ll all be gone by the time I get there’.

And there was no sense that this should have been better organised and wasn’t ‘this just typical now?’ I don’t think I've ever seen a more well-oiled people-moving machine. And a special word for the ushering and directing staff who have to say the same thing to everyone without sounding like a mantra. ‘Hello my friend’ said the man at end of the third queue and it felt like he meant it.

Now, it wasn’t a joyous queue. A queue is still a queue. But it was sort of trance-like. I just edged along, listening to a podcast about the Black Death. Because I like to put things in perspective.

Mine was at the stadium in Lansdowne Road. Obviously I’ll get a Cork shot for my booster. A bit like having the church wedding after the registry office. Plus the Cork vaccine has Bluetooth.

The queue, rather tantalisingly, snaked around the closed and empty corporate box bar a few times. I pictured myself at a match there in future, exchanging investment anecdotes with goys from Lanster. Maybe NPHET will allow it to open by the time I get my second dose. Shots with your shot.

The queue was also interesting because everyone in it was roughly the same age. A sort of school reunion where no one could recognise anyone but we figured we must have been in the same class otherwise we wouldn’t be here now. I never saw so many men looking shook by the arrival of that early stage bald patch. I’d like to think we exchanged glances that said “yeah I never thought it’d happen to me either”. It was as cross-sectiony a cross section you could get. If the zombie apocalypse struck then and we were marooned, you’d have every personality type necessary to see it out. I’d be the ‘Have We Tried Negotiating With Zombies?’ Man.

At the registration hatch I felt that small panic I get at the end of every queue where I worry I’ll say my name, the person will frown at the computer and say “No that’s next/last week/month”. But again, no hitches.

The Post-Vaccination Ushering woman congratulated me. FMLANKS-A-MILLUN I blubbed, unexpectedly choked with emotion. In fact I thanked everyone in a high-vis. I was like getting off twelve busses in a row. I don’t think I’ve any side effects. It’s hard to tell when you’re convinced your body is starting to fall apart anyway.

There might be people reading this in disgust. I’m clearly yet another sheeple -or is it sherson?-, a mainstream media shill, hoodwinked by the New World Order. A handmaiden to the Big Plan to herd everyone into docile serfdom. There probably is one of those plans (possibly related to home ownership) but I don’t think it’s the vaccine one.

When it comes to placing my trust in an operation like this, I tend to work off the numbers. If this were a huge scam, we’d be seeing more leaks about it. There are simply not enough ‘truthers’. That’s my boring rule of thumb. But it’s not all blind acceptance. Let’s give vaccines for free to the Global South. I know Big Pharma have spent millions developing this, capitalism, etc, etc. But so have we all and I’m sure they’ll be fine. The disease isn’t beat until it’s beat everywhere. Let’s open more hatches in the queue.