You’re at the doctor’s office for a regular check up when the doctor suggests you get a flu shot as well. You hate shots, so you try to come up with the most outlandish excuse as to why you can’t get one. Start your story with “You’re not going to believe this, but … ” and end it with “And that’s why I can’t get a flu shot today.” (500 words or less)
“You’re not going to believe this, but … ” As
the words flew from my lips, my mind took a time out just long enough to be
distracted by the heavy bass beat of my thudding heart. At thirty-eight years
old, with a beard that would put to shame some of the founding fathers, I was
afraid of needles. It was a fear that I had successfully hidden from almost
everyone and as I looked at the face of Dr. Jones, I knew it was a fear that I
could not publicize now.
I was digging up a lie from somewhere
deep inside when there was a quite but rapid knock at the door that brought me
back to the heavily wall papered examination room. An older nurse barely
pushing five feet cracked the door just enough to stick in her face and
slightly blue tinted hair.
“Excuse me Dr. Jones, I am so sorry Sir,
but can you step outside for a moment?” Dr. Jones nodded a quiet yes, but his
facial expression seemed pained. He wasn’t the most pleasant man and seemed to
not like surprises, or at least not to like appointment interruptions.
“Charles, I am sorry for the
inconvenience. I will be back as soon as possible.” The Dr. swiftly stood up
from his backless stool and walked briskly out the door leaving behind him the
scheming mind of a man scared of a simple syringe. As seconds ticked by, each
one louder than the last, my anxiety grew and manifested itself into little
piles of paper torn from the sheet that was meant to protect the examination
table.
I’d just about decided to leave without
explanation, and with no preventative flu shot, when the door opened and in
waltzed the doctor once more. I knew that this was my chance to talk my way out
of the sharp pointed spike that was determined to penetrate my arm. In a split
second I decided to go with one of my go to excuses. I had the speech prepared
and was poised to give a convincing soliloquy when the Dr. looked at me with
concern.
“Charles, I’m sorry but it seems like we’ll
have to schedule you another appointment for another time.” Those words stopped
everything around me and I intently waited for him to continue. “It seems the
flu is making its rounds quickly this year and we were a little underprepared.”
Hope begins to build now and I realize I am holding my breath. “We’re out of
the flu vaccine and the next shipment won’t be in until after next week.”
As I left the examination room and parted ways
with the doctor I decided to test my luck and walked right pass the front desk
and my chance to reschedule for another day. I was feeling a little lucky and I
decided to take my chances and see who would catch me first, if at all, the
needle or the bug?
I open the door to my car and smile overhearing another free man’s explanation of his exoneration from the stick. I turn
in time to see the little one thirty year’s my junior exclaim, “And that’s why
I can’t get a flu shot today!”
