Let's call him Dennis.

Look, I don't want to tell other people what to do but--well, ok, I do want to tell other people what to do, but Burning Man is cancelled again this year and all I'm saying is go get your vaccine. That's all. It's not hard.

For real. Do this.

My hair is also nonsense, but it's
been like a year. Give me break.

And I mean, is this really a lot to ask? Like, seriously? I got my second shot on Saturday, and--wait, is it a humble brag if I didn't really have a hand in it? I ask because I was about to tell you that the whole thing was super fast and it's not because I did anything to deserve it, it was just a slow morning at the hockey arena where they were doing the vaccinations but it took nineteen minutes. Nineteen. That's including the fifteen minutes they make you sit in a chair just in case you go into anaphylactic shock. Which I didn't. Almost nobody does. It's incredibly unlikely. Vanishingly rare I think is the phrase. So if that's the thing you're clinging to as a reason not to get vaccinated, stop. Just shhhh. That's nonsense. 

Yes, vaccine. What's wrong with you?

Sorry, not you. You're doing it right (I assume) I'm speaking to that hypothetical you. Maybe it's the stress of the last year, or the least five years or whatever, but I find myself flying into blind rages. Not like, at people, but about people. Not people I know, just people. People I read about on the news or on social media or just people I imagine exist. Usually I find myself railing against this image I have of a theoretical person who refuses to get vaccinated. I make a lot of assumptions about them. Wanna hear?

See? Effective. Less so when you're
 browsing the housewares section.

Let's call him Dennis. Apologies to actual people called Dennis, I just need a name and I have chosen Dennis. Anyway, Dennis drives a pickup, but not like a pickup you have if you're a contractor or if you help people move. It's like a Dodge Ram or F-150, brand new, black, and it has one of those black and white flags with the blue stripes, or an NRA sticker, or a Punisher emblem decal on the window. Maybe all three. Dennis parks across two, sometimes three parking spaces. Dennis just takes up space, in general. He wears camouflage, even when he's just walking around a Target or somewhere other than, you know, the woods. Oh, and guns. Dennis is into guns. Super into guns. You have no idea.

Plenty of places to hide a tracking
device on a pickup though. Also,
Dennis carries a smartphone, so...

Dennis says his love of all things assault rifles is for self-defense, but Dennis also won't get a COVID vaccine even though catching coronavirus is like a million times more likely than a home invasion, but he heard the government uses the shot to track us and change our DNA, so here we are. Arguing with Dennis. You can try to explain that there is no technology on Earth capable of tracking devices small enough to be injectable and that DNA doesn't work like that, but Dennis knows what's really going on. Dennis and his guns.

I think you get the picture. Am I a dick for making all these assumptions? Yes. Am I wrong? Probably not. And I know there's no actual Dennis,* but this figure, this phantom of a selfish, Trumpy, willfully ignorant goon upon whom I pile all my frustrations and who can't be bothered to just be a person and take even a modicum of social responsibility is real in a sense and they're the reason we still can't go to restaurants or movies or to Burning Man. So what I'm saying is get the shot Dennis. Get the goddamn shot.

If nothing else, I'm just really, really ready to stop talking about this.

*obviously there are people called Dennis, again, it's just a name.