How many of you geezers get 'flu vaccinations?

Mrs Le Pew and I get one regularly, something which started a dozen or so years ago. We're both self-employed and neither of us can afford the time off work. There ain't no statutory sick pay in Le Pew mews, either.

Or paid leave, or paid bank holidays...

Anyway, for most of those dozen years or so we tagged innocuously onto the end of the queue of doddery old fossils down at the World Health Organisation's field hospital, passing the time holding onto our homburgs as we watched a steady stream of medevac Hueys pounding in and out full of front line casualties bound for triage.

For ten of those dozen or so years nobody thought to ask us if we qualified for a free vaccination, and we happily rolled up our sleeves, availed ourselves of the platefuls of jammy dodgers and cups of tea, and disappeared sharpish.

We went unnoticed. Well, except for the first occasion when Mrs Le Pew dropped her pants instead of rolling up her sleeve.

It caused a bit of a commotion among the more Cretaceous attendees, but it all blew over.

Last year, however, we were ratted out as the freeloaders we are and ejected through the saloon doors, describing an inelegant parabola which ended in the horse trough. We now have to pay for our shots, but it isn't that much.

And the nurse at the pharmacy is much younger and firmer of loin than the gimlet-eyed cardigan-wearing receptionists at the annual NHS inoculation bash.

I've had proper 'flu once, see, and so has Mrs Le Pew. Neither of us ever want to have it again.

Those people who say they've got 'flu but manage to struggle in to work have never had it. Period.

You can't struggle anywhere if you've got proper 'flu. You feel as if you want to die, and sadly, lots of people do. You'd have no chance of getting out of bed even if your house was on fire.

Being hit by a rhinoceros doesn't cover it.

Being hit by a rhinoceros which then comes back and jumps up and down on you just to make sure is getting somewhere close.

So next week, we're off to see the pulchritudinous pharmacy person, bare arms in hand.

Zitat

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Those people who say they've got 'flu but manage to struggle in to work have never had it. Period.

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I couldn't agree more. Even the dreaded man-flu is but a runny nose compared with the real thing so I'd substitute woolly mammoth for rhinoceros in your description. We really did think that there was a risk that we might die when we were struck down one Christmas. The only other time I've felt that bad was when I crossed the Channel on a mate's 26ft yacht in a force 8 breeze. Never again for either near-death experience, thank you!

We have been having the free flu jab ever since I had my bypass in 2001 as I'm considered to be 'high risk' but now that we are both officially 'Old Gits' we qualify on grounds of age alone.

I'm amazed though by how many people who qualify for the free jab don't take up the offer. Some say that it makes them feel ill and gives them flu-like symptoms but I think that's down to over-active imaginations.

I shall be in the queue on Tuesday morning come what may. I just hope I get the female nurse this time.

Quote: I have no problem with it at all, until they added bird and swine flu to the mix


Well, your avatar does suggest that you're a bird.............................................................................

Quote: Pop540 wrote in post #5

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...and have had the jab twice but both times, I got the flu...

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Zitat

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The virus used to inoculate you (and everyone else) is a dead virus.

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Those of us in the know would have said, "attenuated strain"