-It really was this moment of, like,
"Holy guacamole," like, I got it.
-It's just pure serendipity. -It was like getting a ticket
out of the worst pandemic of my lifetime.
-There was another teacher who was in my building,
and she came up to me and said, "I'm so glad I ran into you.
You know, I've been kind of looking for you."
And she was able to get her vaccine on that day.
She told me that some of her other coworkers were there
and that it seemed like they were gonna have extras.
-There were several meetings that had dragged on,
and I know that people, you know,
had kind of been talking about what was going on in the city.
And I was a little out of the loop.
-We're going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue.
I love Pennsylvania Avenue.
And we're going to the Capitol.
-We finally got out. It was a long day,
and I realized that I didn't have any food,
you know, in my house at that time.
And so I kind of frantically, you know,
rushed out of the house in hopes of going to the grocery store.
-Somebody needed to the store, and my husband said he'd go
and then we both put it off, and I said, "No, never mind.
I'll go."
And it was pretty late and I just went down there.
I was still wearing running clothes from earlier in the day.
-And I asked a woman who worked there, you know,
what her take or what her perspective was.
She said, "If I were you, I would wait."
They wrote my name down and my phone number
and told me to go wait in the car.
-I recognized one of the cashiers,
who I don't know well, but I just recognize
because I go to that store a lot.
And I asked her, "Is the store open?"
And she said, "No, we're closed because of the curfew,
but, by the way, do you want a COVID vaccine?"
-I was just reaching for some cans,
and this announcement came.
I believe it was that they had extra vaccine in the pharmacy,
and that if you wanted a vaccination
to come to the pharmacy.
Well, I did, and I started to run,
and then I kind of stopped myself and I thought,
"Now, wait a minute, who am I trying to outrun here?
I mean, this is sort of unseemly."
-They called me soon after that and I went in
and got my vaccination.
And a nurse came out,
and she said that they had extra vaccines,
so if we knew any other teachers in the area,
that we should call them and let them know that they could come.
And so I called people from my school
and then teachers that I know from other schools in the area.
I think almost 20 people were able to go up
and get their vaccine that day.
-You know, I took a second to kind of process
what was going on,
and, you know, she was kind of putting me on the spot
because she kept saying, "There's only two left."
They were going to throw it away,
as the pharmacist confirmed.
You know, it was kind of a no-brainer at that point.
-I thought that there would be someone more deserving
than myself or maybe of a higher risk group,
so I look down the line to see if anyone was older
or, you know, in any obvious risk group
and, you know, there didn't seem to be anyone.
-I would have preferred that my parents
had a situation like this over me.
-Sometimes, to be honest,
I do feel really bad about getting it.
I have friends who are sick.
I have seriously ill.
I have friends whose spouses are seriously ill
and can't visit them in the hospital because of COVID,
and, you know, if I could change places with them,
if I could've gotten them my spot in life, I would have.
But I couldn't.
-I did feel a little bit better once I realized
that they were gonna triage people
and it wasn't kind of a first come, first serve.
I also felt better when they told me at the end
that they had 200 extra vaccines.
I was definitely relieved
because taking someone's vaccine who needs it more than I do
is not something that I wanted to do.
-I just couldn't believe how routine it was,
and I expected for how life-changing this was,
I really expected,
you know, I don't know, confetti or balloons or something.
And then I went back into the aisles
and I felt like this miraculous thing had just happened to me.
-It was just shock and, like, bewilderment,
almost, of, like, just trying to process
and also having to make a split-second decision.
-Exciting isn't the right word,
but it's definitely brought some ease and some peace of mind.
-I feel fortunate and I do feel I owe a debt to the community.