Lets talk about the Swine flu...

Me too Rich!

So I thought as we enter this year's flu season, I might resurrect this thread...

And rant about the EIGHT HOUR drive-thru line we sat in on Saturday so that mrsreindeer & I could get the H1N1 flushot at an L.A. drivethru clinic so that we can ensure that we wouldn't pass it on to our 6-week old baby.

The sensationalism is still rampant and the freakin' local news coverage of these clinics is ridiculous....

The ONLY reason we did this is to make sure that we don't pass this thing on to babyreindeer, who is still very vulnerable to any illness of any kind at this young age.

So, we headed out to the Redondo Beach clinic and got in line (and damn good placement maybe 1/2 mile from the clinic) at 8:15am. The clinic opened at 9am. Just a little before 9, the line starts moving and quickly and we thought this was great and that we'd have the whole day left to enjoy.

Note, no L.A. doctors have this thing, no drugstores; it's nowhere but these lame clinics. Lame clinics that are supposed to prioritize the shots according to high priority groups, including those who are caring after children under 6 months of age.

Well, no priority was given on Saturday and they were incredibly disorganized and the reason our line was moving a little before 9am was because Torrance PD redirected the line into Torrance. We lost our great placement and then witnessed miles of cars standing in lines from every which direction.

INSANITY.

EIGHT HOURS, EIGHT FREAKING HOURS.

And two Starbucks cups full of my own pi$$. Poor mrsreindeer hopped out at the only restaurant along the stretch to pee and then had to hold it for 4 hours.

Yeah, I guess things could have been worse...

When we finally pull into the clinic, we are told that they only have one shot left, but plenty of the nasal spray which our pediatrician told us not to get. The nasal spray has live flu in it and it could easily be passed on to babyreindeer. We tell the folks that we can't have the nasal spray and the wristbands they FINALLY passsed out an hour before (finally prioritizing the masses) were given to us with the promise that the wristband ensured a shot.

We have to beg & plead with them and somehow, one of the nurses finds another for me.

Has anyone else been through this nightmare????