All this TOA election talk, what a bore! And I think there is one more post coming on Tuesday. Let's take a break today and talk about a fun topic instead.
The first dose
I spent months trying to understand why these COVID vaccines were being referred to as The Jab. Well, I should say, I know why, the motion of injecting an arm is similar to what a boxer does, that short and quick version of a punch is called a jab, and that's sort of, well, not exactly, but it's close enough to how I got my vaccine from the nurse, so it's The Jab.
But why do we need this nickname? It seems fine to me if we call a vaccine a vaccine, but instead we have The Jab, which has become so common that a Google search for those two words returns articles, podcasts, and videos about the COVID vaccine. Some additional "research" (that is, more Googling) revealed that "jab" is a more common expression in the UK for vaccines in general, but that doesn't explain why the COVID vaccine is causing it to catch on here in the US. Haven't needle-based inoculations been a core part of the US healthcare system, at least for my lifetime? I'd think if it was going to catch on, it would have done so long before the pandemic.
One obvious answer is from my experience on TOA - I know from proofreading that I avoid repeating words within a sentence (and the less common the word, the less I want to repeat it). The same ethos defines the broader trend of how people naturally invent new expressions for the same old thing - nicknames, jargon, acronyms, localized terms, just writing out this sentence shows me that the category itself is its own example, spewing an endless list of ways to say the same thing. At the core, I think there is something here about the way new expressions help build and reinforce community, almost like a collective form of an inside joke, at least in the sense of how such jokes serve as an unofficial ID badge for membership in an otherwise undefined group. Let's be frank for a moment - the only functional feature of a Boston accent is signaling you're from Boston.
So I guess this begs the real question - what is the social purpose of calling it the jab? My musings in the prior paragraph have me on the lookout for a community, though the scale is such that at best I can only generalize, leading to the plausible BS that longtime readers know as the TOA trademark. My best guess goes back to January, when I was unsettled by the blinding pace of the vaccine's development and found myself asking questions which seemed to make no sense to anyone - why is everyone so dismissive about the unknown of long-term effects? What's the deal with mRNA? Wasn't the approval process a little fast? Was there an approval process at all? My voice was lost under the endless drumroll of stampeding feet, all headed to the first place that would jab them, marching to a drummer I'd always ignored - jab, jab, jab...
Sometimes I think back to these days in the beginning of the year and I wonder - what was the big deal? The fact is that what I know about the vaccine is one-millionth of what people who know about vaccines know about vaccines (and I would say that, on average, I know more about vaccines than most people). If people who think about vaccines all day say a vaccine is ready to go, then it's not so important what I think about it.
The second dose
He was wearing a mask. This wasn't the problem with the guy, in fact the mask made him seem almost reasonable, like the sort who files away his papers and pushes the chair under his desk before leaving the office. A believer that superficial displays of organization would make him more organized, maybe. The problem was that he had walked right up next to me, so close I could almost smell him, like we were about to play Red Rover with the folks lined up at the other end of the crosswalk, or maybe Red Light, Green Light, the pedestrian version, where the colors were switched. In fact, my body was the first thing to register his presence, like a sixth sense was tickling the hairs along my spine, before I turned my eyes and confirmed his proximity. He wasn't looking back, though, he was looking around, lost, a tourist both in the city and in life, ready to ignore the traffic signals, waiting to follow the herd and its cues that would ensure and endanger his safety.
I stepped sideways to my right, though I didn't feel the need to keep my distance as I had done at this time last year. Still, my shift seemed to get his attention, his sense of vision - and perhaps his sense of life - dependent on movement. He gave me a puzzled look and possibly even spoke, but I couldn't tell - he was wearing a mask. It was all for the best, I thought, as he shuffled into the street alongside a couple scurrying to beat a truck through the intersection. I didn't have anything to say that would have made sense to him or anyone else who would wear a mask while standing at my shoulder - maybe keeping a safe distance would work better than a mask, but he wasn't going to do it unless he saw everyone else doing it. Sometimes we see no sense in making our own decisions, perhaps regarding it like one of those anonymous gifts - no receipt, no recognition, just done for its own good, and what's the point of that? I guess there is always a moment when everyone else becomes irrelevant, when knowing what you know is all that matters, and I knew I could wait for the light while the second jab protected me.
Side effects
I hadn't been anywhere like this since the start of COVID, possibly even longer - pool tables, bowling lanes, an entire room full of arcade games, why if it wasn't for the two bars at opposite ends it would have existed solely to host birthday parties for ten-year-old boys. We were among the earliest groups, separated by closer to sixty than six feet from all others, with the plexiglass barriers reminding everyone of the COVID restrictions. But for what purpose? I wore my mask to our table, then removed it to go play pool. When it was time for a drink, I went to the bar and yelled at the bartender because she couldn't read my lips - I was wearing my mask. I think we're all doing the best we can, I just don't know what we're doing.
There's been talk of vaccine passports, which would require proof of vaccination to enter certain public spaces. I think there are some good reasons for and against, though if I had to make a decision I would be strongly in favor because doing otherwise would place a huge risk burden on the staff of these establishments. However, the question of being for or against something like a vaccine passport misses the point, creating the same false duality that plagues so much of what passes for public discourse these days. The question on my mind is whether something that requires a vaccine passport should be open at all, but I don't think anyone wants to go to the trouble of having that conversation. The problem might be hard to see at first, but I think I got it from my experience proofreading TOA - this discussion of what's safe and not safe in a pandemic, it just sounds too much like what we've all heard before, and I just know that nobody likes to see the same words twice unless I can trick you into reading them.
Or maybe it's far simpler than that, maybe it's the same reason why we can ignore the risk while we drive cars or play helmet football or drink a couple of beers at an arcade for adults - I suppose we've decided we can live with the illusion of safety, and if something goes wrong, then that's life. We're all tourists here, pretending to be interested in the same old things. In the meantime, we survive by creating and preserving our communities, which means doing things together like taking the jab, or just calling it that. I had a couple of beers while playing pool, but it was safe - I didn't poke anyone's eyes out while taking my jabs, and I exchanged my cue for my mask before going to the bathroom.
Booster shot
It's been nice to hear the booster shot referred to as a booster shot, in line with the language I've always used to discuss routine healthcare. It makes life seem normal again, doesn't it? But I don't think I was so alone back in January, was I, when I discovered that I was more of an anti-vaxxer than I'd thought for my whole life? It was easy to be 100% pro-vaccine when it referred to a bunch of things that happened before I turned on my memory, you know? I suspect this was the case for quite a few people, maybe even millions of people, who I'm sure will probably never talk about it, preferring instead that superficial signal of consistency to the real thing that lurks within - the messy set of contradictions that we carry with us through our whole lives. But why would anyone talk about it? It's a scary realization, pointing to the possibility that there may be other beliefs we currently consider integral to our identities which are in fact nothing more than unchallenged self-delusions, ready to crumble away under the withering examination of another moment as serious as this pandemic.
I suppose the fact that I went in and rolled up my sleeve, somewhat reluctantly and always at the back of my line, is evidence that I could benefit from letting my actions speak instead of my words. But then what are my words for? We called it a jab, I think, because we had a lot of people out there who weren't so comfortable about a vaccine produced in record time, and someone knew that the right words can take the sting out of a needle, can make something serious seem like no big deal. They knew that just by establishing a certain set of words which everyone could repeat like a secret handshake, the power of community would emerge to help carry countless others past that initial moment of hesitation.
I think I was something like that high school student who knows everything he needs to know about drugs - his report card has the "A" to prove it - and yet he finds himself astonished that the best argument against him is nothing more than a series of nicknames, each trying to make the case that some things are just not worth worrying about. Mary Jane? Molly? Special K? It just doesn't sound so bad when you put it a certain way, and everyone's doing it. One source reported that "the jab" goes back over a century, to "morphine and cocaine fiends". What expression is more likely to get someone over that initial reluctance - hypodermic injection, or jab? The fact is that what I know about jargon is one-millionth of what people who know about jargon know about jargon (and I would say that, on average, I know more about jargon than most people). If people who think about jargon all day say that a vaccine is a jab, then maybe it's not so important what I think about it.
