A few friends of mine had recently discovered that the local middle school was distributing COVID-19 vaccines on Wednesdays from 10-2. They went to wait to see if they could get one of the extra vaccines and had a successful mission. A week later, my boyfriend and I thought we ought to try it out in the hopes of getting vaccinated!

We arrived at the site at around 10:30 AM. Due to COVID, a lot of my days are flexible because I have so many asynchronous courses. I had a huge window of availability from around 10-5, and my boyfriend was able to get out of classes by doing his work ahead of time. We waited in a line outside with around 100 or so other people by my estimate, many of them being college students who had heard all the same things we had.

The morning air was much colder than a lot of us had accounted for. My friend brought us a blanket, a portable charger (apparently neither of us thought to charge our phones the night before), and a sweatshirt for myself. Tons of others had friends drop off blankets and lawn chairs. Eventually, people in line were ordering pizza to get them through the walk.

When we got there, a man was walking around with a clipboard, having everyone sign in by writing their name and date of birth on a piece of paper. Honestly, this was a red flag in my opinion because he had everyone holding the same clipboard and pen. I understand that COVID doesn't transfer well via surfaces, but there's a reason we use clean pens only at COVID testing, wipe down our desks after class, wipe down our tables after eating, etc. So I was a tad irked by that.

We stayed around the same spot for a very long time, at least two hours I would gauge. We had heard stirring throughout the day about extra vaccines being given out in age order and that it was unlikely we would get vaccinated. But everyone as a whole collective line, for the most part, decided to keep sticking it out. No one official had been out to announce anything after all.

Eventually, when it was almost 3 p.m. and we were about 30 people away from the door, someone came out, again no one official, and explained what the situation was. They were giving the extra doses in age order, but stopped after vaccinating those born in the 80s.

The woman giving this information was a tad miffed because her slightly older brother that was with her was able to get vaccinated and she was not. Since they had our information from the online request form we had to fill out, we might be able to expect an email or phone call at some point, though we don't suspect this will be until we are officially eligible on March 29th.

I'm fine that I didn't get vaccinated as I will be eligible soon and am rather cautious. I also didn't mind getting out of the dorm for a little bit and just hanging out with my boyfriend. Though I do find it quite irritating that we were told we had to wait in line if we wanted to get one at first, and then proceeded to wait in line for over four hours while workers inside knew there was a large group of college students outside in line for several hours on a Wednesday afternoon.

Apparently, those inside were making jokes about how we must be outside playing cornhole or volleyball, wasting our time, and they didn't understand why we were waiting in line when we were not going to get vaccinated. Well, no one bothered to come outside and tell us, that's why. And to think, that whole time I could have been studying for my exam the following day.