As a toddler I spent a lot of time staring at E Charts while indicating to the eye surgeon which way their prongs pointed so he could evaluate his handiwork correcting my particular case of strabismus. It took two surgeries to set my eyes straight enough for me not to see double, but I can still relax my eye muscles enough to go walleyed at will any time I want to.
Not long after that time I began being vaccinated for polio, smallpox and other dreaded diseases and began wondering if my lot in life would be a never-ending series of blood samples, shots and surgeries. Eventually I was deemed by the medical machine as being fully immunized for most anything except the ever-mutating forms of influenza emerging each season. For decades I avoided being vaccinated against influenza, convinced in my youthfulness that I was indeed invincible against all microbiological comers I might contract.
COVID-19 and its emerging variants now pose a new threat in these years of what I still prefer to think of as pre-advanced age. So once again I am being vaccinated against all comers necessary to survive at least another twenty-five or thirty-five years as my parents have, and they have both been vaccinated many more times in their lifetimes than I have without suffering any detrimental effects or bodily magnetism or whatever goofy crap anti-vaxxers are coming up with these days to convince themselves vaccinations are dangerous.
I probably will never have to spend anymore time staring at E Charts again, but vaccinations are becoming a simple fact of life for anyone smart enough to want to live a long, happy life.
