The 90-minute "Minute Clinic"

After having a nice lunch today with my friend Jessica, I decided to get my annual flu shot. I've been getting a flu shot since I was a freshman in college, and it's worked so far. A nurse told me that being in a college setting is a high risk area since I'm in constant contact with hundreds of students each day, touching the same door handles, computer keyboards, bathroom fixtures, etc., and as a whole college students don't take care of themselves.

I decided to go to the CVS Minute Clinic, but it took many minutes, almost 90 to be exact. Based on the television commercial, I thought the Minute Clinic only handled flu shots. I was wrong. It's an actual clinic where people who are sick go to be diagnosed, hence the long wait. When I arrived around 2:30 p.m., there were four people in front of me, and three of them weren't there to get a flu shot. They were sick, and the nurse practitioner spent about 25 minutes with each of them. I'm glad they were treated for their various illnesses because it gave me the chance to meet a very interesting woman.

A 69-year-old pawn shop owner walked in for her flu shot a few minutes after I did. We all had to use a touch-screen computer system to register for a flu shot or list another reason we were there. She immediately told me she didn't know how to use computers, so I helped her log on. It took a few minutes since she didn't always hit the correct key, but we finally got her registered. She then proceeded to rummage through her purse searching for a business card to give me. As I mentioned she owns a pawn shop and wrote on the back of the card that I can receive a 35 percent discount on any item not on sale, and I can use layaway. She also didn't include an expiration date.

She couldn't find her cell phone, so she drove back to her pawn shop to get it. When she returned 20 minutes later, we were all still waiting. She told myself and another young woman sitting next to me that she was going to do some shopping. A few minutes later she returned with a Brazilian bikini wax kit and asked if either of us had used one. We both told her no. She informed us of her trip next week to Miami with her 79-year-old husband and how she didn't have time to go to a beauty shop for a bikini wax. Then, she proceeded to open up the wax kit and read the entire instruction guide out loud for all to hear. If you've never read a bikini wax guide out loud, please don't start now. She also made several other comments I will not write here, but I'll leave to your imagination.

Fortunately, it was my turn next to have a flu shot, but I enjoyed meeting this very nice woman, and I appreciate the discount card. To be almost 70 and buying a bikini wax kit...I can only hope.