Roger Moroney: Get the Covid 19 coronavirus jab then we can all carry on and enjoy life

Roger Moroney had his first Covid-19 jab and he says he takes his hat off to all those on the medical front who are delivering them. Photo / NZME

OPINION:

Last week I mused upon the art of coming second.

Runner-up.

Off the winning pace.

Close but not quite close enough.

Now, today, this morning, or whatever the date is (I have no idea) I am in the realm of being halfway there.

Just about got it finished.

Soon be sorted.

Just takes a bit of time …that sort of thing.

For I had my first Bovine17…no hang on…Covid-19 (Part One) vaccine thing the other day and my hat, if I could find it, goes off to all those on the medical front who are delivering these spike-in-the-arm procedures.

"Left or right arm?" my smiling needle-bearing companion asked.

Whatever suits," I replied.

So she went for my upper left arm and aimed a tiny thing at it and I felt pretty well nothing.

"All done," she said.

I was then cheerily told to go and see the lady at the nearby desk and get my card sorted for the follow-up (Part Two) jab in three weeks.

Oh yeah, and go have a tea or coffee or water while you sit out the 20-minute relax and rest stint.

Not that you need it…because it just feels like nothing even happened.

Through years of crashing motorcycles and other incidents I have had more needles than hot dinners, and this latest one was comfortably sublime.

And so very, very essential.

Roger Moroney.

Anyone who steers a course away from forming a resistance to China's worst recent export is not going down the right path, in my opinion.

Like the swimmer with the USA olympics team who refuses to be vaccinated.

Yet there he is.

In the great Olympic village, and the waters, and probably in the cafes and lounges…where his and our most dangerous competitor may be lurking.

The variant from the land of Delta.

My simple advice to one and all (and my eight readers…at last count) is when the time arrives, as it did for me, is to "get the thing"and let's get back on the road to annihilating this vile intrusion into our lives.

I'm looking forward to my follow-up jab because the service is superb and the tea and coffee is on the house!

For a tightwad like me that is a super bonus.

Yep, didn't have to get the wallet out, which was a good thing as I had left the empty bloody thing back at home.

So as I sat there during my 20-minute rest-up I started to wonder how Mr Toad would have handled this most essential slice of life's circumstances.

For I had spoken to the dear chap only a few hours before I happily embraced Mr Needle.

We had gone to see the wonderful, cheerful, and very entertaining Real Theatre Company's production of Wind in the Willows…for two of our dear grand-daughters were in it.

The lead actors were just remarkable.

All of them.

And afterwards I asked the facially green-painted chap how on earth he could remember all those lines, and engage with an audience so calmly and astutely, and he laughed and said he just enjoyed the buzz.

"Don't know why I do it,"he chortled.

"Because you must," I replied, and we both laughed…adding I was looking forward to whatever they had lined up next.

So a couple of hours later, I sat there in the rest-up section of Spike City (a rugby clubrooms actually) and wondered how the wonderfully bumptious and uncompromising Mr Toad would have considered this "get the jab" doctrine.

I know what the dear chap would have told Badger, Mole and Ratty….and the hedgehogs and weasels and stoats for that matter.

"Oh take the thing and let's all carry on and have a good laugh…and then we can all happily carry on and enjoy our lives together."

• Roger Moroney is an award-winning journalist and observer of the slightly off centre.