This post isn't really my typical blog post. It's a public service announcement. So, listen up.
If you have a best friend who is a paramedic, very intelligent, highly respected, and who looks out for you like you're his favorite sister, and that guy tells you, "The department's giving free flu shots; you oughta get one", the proper response to that is a resounding, "Okay, I'll run right over there!"
Not, "Meh...I'm not in one of the high-risk groups so I think I'll skip it."
Because if you do not take that good advice to get a flu shot, and then you end up with the flu, and you call your brother-from-another-mother Kenny to whine about how awful you feel, you will not get any sympathy from him.
You will get, "I told you so, Calamity! I told you so!!" (Yes, the man calls me Calamity. And it's stuck, so now other people call me this, too. Sigh.)
Get a flu shot. Especially if you're in one of the high-risk groups: the elderly, people with compromised immune systems, health care workers, pregnant women, people with asthma or other respiratory diseases, and at-home caregivers of children younger than 6 months old. But even if you're not in one of those groups, get a flu shot. (Unless, of course, you have a severe allergy to eggs, have ever had Guillain-Barre Syndrome, or have had a bad reaction to a flu shot in the past.)
Or you could end up like me. In the words of Catherine Aird, "If you can't be a good example, you'll have to serve as a horrible warning."