Covid-19 Vaccine Adventures (2-Verse Limerick Plus Vaccine Scheduling Tips)

What follows is:

1: A two-verse limerick about my adventures (and difficulties) in booking Covid-19 vaccine appointments in New York City for hubby Mark and me. (And yes, we both easily qualify by age.)

2: A blow by blow description of how I finally managed to snag vaccine appointments in the doesn’t-deserve-to-be-called-a-system New York Covid-19 vaccine scheduling “system.”

(I hope that the information I provide below my 2-verse limerick proves helpful to those who are having similar vaccine-booking problems, both in and outside of New York.)

Fin’lly got my first shot. So did Mark,
After problems with booking them — stark!
New York’s issue-packed system
(too many to list ’em)
Is so bad, I have fantasies — dark.

So how did I schedule our shots
In a system so tied up in knots?
“Push notifications”
Resolved our frustrations;
We were saved by some fine Twitter bots.

If you’re having problems booking Covid-19 vaccine appointments, here’s how I did it in New York City. I hope it helps you too. (Even if you live in another state, some of my info just might be applicable to you.)

1. After trying all the obvious methods for booking vaccine appointments, and failing abysmally, I searched Google to find out if anybody had created a Covid-19 vaccine appointment locator bot in New York. I used search phrases such as covid-19 vaccine New York bot and Covid-19 vaccine New York tracker bot.

This led me to these two Twitter accounts: @turbovax and @nycshotslots. (If you are having trouble getting a vaccination appointment outside of New York, try a similar search for your own state. And if you’re lucky, a Good Samaritan in your city or state created a comparable public bot. For example, this bot was designed for New Jersey residents, and this one was set up for Massachusetts residents.)

2. I went to Twitter, searched for both accounts, and clicked on “follow.” (I was already active on Twitter. However, if you’re not already a Twitter member, you’ll have to join it before benefiting from these or other Twitter bot accounts.)

3. For the next couple of weeks, I checked those New York bot Twitter accounts three or four times an hour. And from time to time, I actually found some potential appointments. Unfortunately, however, each time I went to snag a pair of appointments, I was already too late. This happened even when I started checking every five or ten minutes.

4. Finally, in desperation, I researched how to get “push notifications” from individual Twitter accounts. (In general, I hate and avoid push notifications. But this situation called for emergency measures!)

Fortunately, setting up Twitter push notifications on my laptop turned out to be very simple: All I had to do was return to the home pages of each of those two accounts I was already following (@turbovax and @nycshotslots) and click on the icon immediately to the left of the word “following.” (The icon looks like a bell with a plus sign.) Clicking on it turns on push notifications for that specific Twitter feed, and you’ll know it’s properly set up because after clicking on it, it will turn as dark blue as your “following” indicator button.

5. From then on, as long as I was near my laptop (and the sound was on) I’d hear a sound indicating that one of those two accounts had just tweeted. Additionally a visible notice would flash, then disappear very quickly.

6. As soon as I saw or heard one of those “push notifications” I headed to Twitter to read the latest bot tweets and see if it was for appointment locations/dates that might work for us. And the second I saw one that might be good, I clicked on the site, filled out the forms, and was able to successfully book appointments for both Mark and myself.

Even then, acting so swiftly, I ended up with appointments for us on consecutive days, and not the theoretically more desirable same day. But that actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise, because parking was impossible at that location (Hillcrest High School, Jamaica Queens, NY.)

So Mark and I took turns on consecutive appointment days, remaining in the driver’s seat, illegally parked in front of someone’s driveway with the blinkers on, ready to move the car at a moment’s notice, for as long as it took for the non-car-baby-sitter to get his/her shot.

Mark and I are both very relieved to have gotten our first shots and to have dates scheduled for our second shots. And I hope you too either have gotten (or will soon get) your Covid vaccine shots.

I also hope that you found this info helpful or, at least, enjoyed my limerick.

*****
FYI, here’s a non-Twitter New York State-wide bot that I haven’t tried, because I discovered it after booking our appointments.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

4 Responses to “Covid-19 Vaccine Adventures (2-Verse Limerick Plus Vaccine Scheduling Tips)”

  1. Rudy Landesman says:

    Am I entering this in the right place? It does not qualify for the current contest.

    My Vaccine experience (two limericks)

    I’m just eighty-four at this stage
    And the virus continues to rage
    To get the vaccine
    I did not make a scene
    I simply just lied ’bout my age

    They assured us quite often enough
    Side effects were not worth speaking of
    And I am O.K.
    But yes, by the way
    My left arm did somehow fall off.

    ******
    **********

    Yes, this is the right place to comment on/limerick about my Covid vaccination post.

  2. Rudy Landesman says:

    Correction:

    Last line of second limerick should read:

    My left arm, it did somehow fall off

    Thak you

    ********

    Done, and yes you posted your Covid vaccine-related limerick in the right place.

  3. Sondra Landin says:

    It’s over, I now can come clean;
    The hunt was a frustrating scene.
    My search in each borough
    Was painfully thorough,
    But yielded no drops of vaccine.

    One morning I spied a new site;
    Success this time seemed very right.
    When I got my time slot,
    And I felt that first shot,
    I quaffed some Scotch shots with delight!

  4. Sondra Landin says:

    I am done, and I’ve vented my spleen.
    I was wild; my complexion was green.
    It took searches thorough
    In each nearby borough,
    But I finally snared that vaccine!

    You must rush when you find a new site,
    You must fill out the forms – do them right!
    When a time slot you nab
    And you feel that first jab,
    No more worries about viral plight!