Pork poke.

Like a good American, I've been in a mad panic over the clear and impending doom of the H1N1 (or the "hiney" flu as it's become known in Casa de los How2). I'd meant to get Punk vaccinated a few weeks ago, but the day before her appointment she came down with a nasty cold. So plans were put on hold, and by the time I was confident she was no longer a vat of Toddler Tantrums, Snot and Fail, the vaccine had run plum out.

So you can imagine the moment of panic and hysteria when I got word that a high school about 45 minutes away was hosting a free H1N1 Flu Shot clinic for children. Oblivious to just what I was about to get into, I piled Punk into the car and drove the 45 minutes to the school.

This is what I saw as I pulled in:


(Forgive the shitty quality, it was taken with my cell phone.)

That, my friends, is a line. That wrapped around the entire goddamn school.

But I had driven that far. And I was being guaranteed the line moved quickly. So I stood there with my toddler beside me in nothing more than a light jacket, since I'd assumed we'd be ushered into a gym soon, and I smiled and thought to myself, I'm an awesome parent.

Two hours later and we were still outside waiting. In the end of October in the midwest, where the minute the sun sets it instantly gets cold. Punk was a trooper as much as a toddler can be, but she was bored and tired and cold. So after two hours of standing and waiting, I no longer had my sweatshirt on and was standing in 45 degree weather in a t-shirt, with my sweatshirt wrapped around my tired, pissed off child, who I then held -- all 32 goddamn pounds of her, dead weight -- for another hour.

We got to the front of the line, through the doors of the school, where there was a gigantic flourescent sign awaiting us:

"[Insert County Here] RESIDENTS ONLY. HAVE IDENTIFICATION READY."

This is the point where I got a lot of hostile looks from parents around me as I said (unintentionally out loud), "Oh you have got to be FUCKING KIDDING ME."

I had been waiting 2.5 hours to find out that I couldn't get my kid vaccinated. I was cold, she was cold, we were cranky, we were half an hour late for her dinner time at this point, and we were both exhausted, and my biceps felt like they were about give out. No. I was not turning around. Fuck that shit with a big strap on.

So as I got to the front table to fill out the necessary forms, I got creative. I made up a fake address in the town we were in, and I lied through my teeth when they looked at my ID and I said we'd just moved to this town, and I hadn't gotten my driver's license changed yet.

I have never once in my life claimed to be a role model or an example for ideal moral compass. But I challenge anyone in that situation to just turn around and take your pissed off, cold child home. No. Oh hell no I wasn't turning back.

Punk finally got her Pork Poke, and I struggled to keep myself from having a complete nervous breakdown when they told me she'd need the second dose in a month. "Just go ahead and wait in the bleachers for 10 minutes to be sure she doesn't have a reaction," the nurse said.

Now, my daughter's welfare is constantly a priority for me. But at that point, after over three hours of waiting in the cold with a pissed off, hungry, cold toddler, I'd had it. Fuck it. She might have a reaction, but she probably won't, and that was a risk I was willing to take.

I walked out the gym doors, walked half a mile back to my car, and strapped Punk in. And what followed was something that my kid(s) will one day know is a situation where we don't talk to Mommy for a good long while, as I drove with Battle of Los Angeles on irresponsibly loud and stared blankly at the road, without muttering a word.

Mommy was done.