My Covid jab was inserted into my lily-white skin in the plush Caberfeidh Hotel in Stornoway, now repurposed as a makeshift field hospital like the 1970s series M*A*S*H or mobile army surgical hospital.
I half-expected a blood-stained Alan Alda to appear and growl: “Who’s next?”
Beckoned forward to be punctured, my irrational fears convinced me he or she would be a hypodermic-handling harridan intent on grievous bodily harm.
She was very nice to me, actually. Rolling up the sleeves of my Hawaiian semmit, my eyelids were firmly clenched. Good word that, clench. Clench is my word of the week. I clench regularly, and not just at the dentist, but my eyelids haven’t been clenched for ages.
Not since I was five years old when teacher ordered me to wait until playtime to seek solace in the area known as the big potty place.
Everything got clenched that dreadful day – but still someone had to fetch a mop, a bucket and the ubiquitous bottle of Dettol before the bell rang. Couldn’t hold it in, miss. Haven’t learned to clench yet, miss.
Clenched and waiting for an armful of Oxford-AstraZeneca, my skin was soothingly rubbed and she asked if I’d had previous reactions.
I replied I sometimes had pain but I would stoically endure it as a Bernera Braveheart. “No need. It’s done,” she tittered. I gingerly opened my eyes, unfurled my toes and loosened everything in between.
It ached for a few days but I raised a small glass to the vision of the post-war health minister Nye Bevan that the NHS should meet the needs of everyone, be free at the point of delivery, and be based on clinical need not the ability to pay.
“Well done, boyo,” I said, as I toasted Nye in the thick accent of Private Cheeseman, the goofy newspaperman from Dad’s Army.
NHS frontline staff do absolutely deserve proper wage rises after this last year. Offering a measly 1% is like the man who shared a lift with me at Raigmore Hospital a few years ago.
He had a wind problem so that too was unacceptable on so many levels. Wait and see. Their stinginess could topple Boris, Matt and Rishi.
I almost toppled when I discovered you shouldn’t take alcohol for two days before a jab or for many days afterwards.
It’s in the small print in the pamphlet you get after a jab. Stupid NHS. What are they like, eh?
That should be up in big letters for us to study as we waited. If I’d known that, I wouldn’t have… just kidding. I am not a Covidiot or, as they are known in Glasgow right now, Rangers supporter.
What possessed these bampots to gather? That could be something we will forever wonder about – like who in the royal family asked about Meghan’s baby’s skin colour? I’m not speculating. Not out loud, anyway.
Old Firm fans are also very loud but they keep letting down football, and Scotland. Celtic went on a jaunt to Dubai as the pandemic was turning nasty and Rangers supporters potentially infected each other and their families.
Last weekend, the Ibrox club said nothing beforehand, despite alleged police pleas, to persuade their fans to stay home and cuddle up to a slab of Tennent’s lager. Like normal people.
Who knows the consequences? After the South African strain and the Brazil strain, will we have a new blue strain? No, I didn’t say blues train. Isn’t that a song? I have no words, which is not great when you’re a newspaper columnist.
One of the Rangers supporters at George Square on Sunday is a shopkeeper in Govan, I hear.
His IQ must be less than his shoe size. He doesn’t believe the coronavirus exists. To him it’s all a hoax by the Russians, or maybe the CIA, to inject us with tiny 5G radio transceivers so they can control our minds.
His shop is plastered with signs which say Covid Hoax and Masks Not Needed Here.
Two big guys ran into his shop the other day and they both had face masks on and proper PPE – even oxygen tanks.
The Covidiot cove pointed to the signs, shouting: “Are you taking the mickey? We don’t recognise the virus.
“You don’t need to wear any masks while you’re in here.”
Then the first guy said through clenched teeth: “I beg to differ, pal. Your shop’s on fire.”