SHORT:
Someone on Twitter said I should subtract the G in Megan and go by “Mean Pope”. Should I do this? Could be hilarious…
MEDIUM:
I used to write essays on the Kantian aesthetics of Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon, and now I write tweets that are like: “butt butt butt butt butt and don’t forget? face!”
Which is better? Which is worse? Is it all good? Is it all bad?
LONG:
On Saturday, I worked as a “vaccine flow monitor” from 7am to 7pm (and at the end of the day, I got my first dose of the blessed Moderna!) It honestly was one of the most exciting things I’ve done all year. I haven’t had a long day in a long time.
I woke up at 5am and channeled my inner ex-student athlete, making a quick coffee and toaster waffle as I packed a bag (only this time I didn’t prep with the anxiety of, moments later, having to deal with our 5’4’’ male lift coach scream “LET’S GO! MOVE WITH A SENSE OF URGENCY!” as we ran laps around the building in the DARK and through the SPRINKLERS because even though we told him that the sprinklers go off, like clockwork, every time we did the warm up, FOR 4 YEARS, nothing ever changed :) We got to be soaking wet from 5:45-7am as we “pumped iron”... I used to cope with the hell of the workouts by screaming “I love pumping!” and “Get pumped!”. Only 1 person truly appreciated my incredible humor and would shout “get pumped” back at me while looking at my little fluffy frame, knowing that I would never “get pumped” in the traditional sense… no matter how hard I tried. Shoutout to that person.)
My friend Aaron and I arrived at the high school vaccination site at 6:45, bundled and ready to go. We were directed inside and told to find a seat in the auditorium/theater (The theater! The feeling of being back in a theater! Inexplicable! Joyous! Beautiful! Unmatched! The stage had ample wing space!)
Moments after we found our seats, I turned around and locked eyes with my dear friend Chris (who I didn’t know would be there!) It turns out that Aaron and Chris have 9 million mutual friends and were both in final callbacks for the same Broadway show when they were 12. I nodded along as they chatted, thinking about my (absolutely comparable) experience as a tween in my Jewish Day School production of Minnie’s Boys (we did not have a set, but we had chutzpah!! And zero understanding of the material <3).
After twenty minutes, Jessica 1 and Jessica 2 took the stage. Jessica 1 read from a binder and filled us in on the details of the day. It felt very SATs. We also could barely hear her. But it was powerful. Then Jessica 2 took the stage. SHE could belt. SHE had breath support. Diction. Projection for the gods. SHE brought us capital T Theater at 7am. No small feat! After she finished her spiel, I applauded and whispered “let’s save some lives!” It really felt like we were about to single handedly save 1000+ people from death.
(Jessica 1 would later go on to redeem herself in the belting/ projection department by coming up to me in the hallway and yelling “YOU ARE NOT VISIBLE! THIS IS NOT VISIBLE! MAKE YOURSELF VISIBLE!” I was like, ok! Affirmative! Yes! This has been a life goal of mine for quite some time! You’re right. I gotta get better at it across the board! Just kidding. I did not say any of that. I whispered an apology and skittered to a more visible spot.)
The whole day was quite the production– an immersive, Sleep-No-More-esque experience that stretched far beyond the wings and walls of the auditorium. Before heading down to our positions, we met a man named Anthony who pointed at Aaron’s legs and told him that “they were twisted like the devil!” “You have Satan’s legs!” He then told us that he was in jail for 31 years and is still on parole but now makes more money than his parole officer which is amazing.
We also had breakfast in a classroom full of blue chairs that made me think about getting whacked in the face with a soccer ball in third grade and crying in front of the whole class during multiplication “games” because I was so bad at math. Yes, this was a high school, but those were the memories evoked by the blue chairs (you know the ones).
In an interesting twist, the main character of the day was not Jessica 1 or Jessica 2 or Anthony but a heartthrob named “Matt”. We met Matt early in the morning, his luscious brown locks bobbing in the auditorium breeze as he moved up and down the aisles in a structured blue vest repeating, “today’s gonna be FUCKING insane.” Chris, Aaron, and I instantly fell in love. And… honestly? Matt seemed to instantly love us too. He made sure we were signed up to get lunch, registered to get the vaccine at the end of the day, and checked-in constantly to see “how we were doing” (alright, maybe this was definitely actually 100% just his job, but it felt SPECIAL! Ok?!).
A high point of the whole experience was when Matt walked by us and said “if we vaccinate 1200 people today, I will faint.” This inspired #makemattfaint, a slogan that Chris, Aaron, and I invoked throughout our shifts. We HAD to see our tall, brown-haired prince pass out from pride! We needed him to keel over with shock and awe! …And fall into our readily positioned arms!
At one point Matt, angry that people were not moving from the upstairs line to the downstairs line fast enough, looked me dead in the eyes and said: “we need to get you a walkie”. I was chuffed. Overwhelmed. Honored. He brought the walkie down, and I positioned myself sexily against the wall to receive it… then he walked right past me and gave it to my flow monitor partner Daniel. I nodded and accepted the loss. I knew this wasn’t the end of my journey with Matt or the walkie. I’d have both in the palm of my hand soon enough.
Later in the day, Daniel (walkie-in-hand) revealed that he used to work at JSTOR/ has lifelong unlimited access to the database, and I lost my shit #makemeganfaint.
He and the other flow monitors work for the government, and there was a brutal moment when he asked me “what agency I worked for”, and I had to reveal that I was merely a civilian. Then he said, “oh wow I didn’t realize they let civilians do this.” In the nicest way possible.
At this point you may be wondering, what exactly is a “flow monitor”? What did you do all day? Excellent question. As a flow monitor, I stood for 12 hours in a drafty indoor-outdoor hallway space and screamed “PLEASE SOCIAL DISTANCE AND HAVE YOUR QR CODES OUT AND READY TO GO!” As the clients moved up, Aaron would then yell, “AT THIS POINT YOU’RE GOING TO WANT TO START UNBUNDLING AND GETTING YOUR ARMS READY, YOU’RE ALMOST THERE!” Then Chris, a few feet down the line, would finish it off by saying “THIS IS THE LAST TIME TO USE THE BATHROOM ON THE PREMISES, SO IF YOU HAVE TO GO, GO NOW!” They’ll write about us in the history books.
When it came time for lunch, we had to switch-off covering one another’s positions……… and you know what that means……….. I GOT THE WALKIE!! Daniel went to eat, and I was alone in the lower hallway (shoutout to the incredible That’s So Raven scene “Alone In The Hallways As Always” that echoed through my head the entire time. Anneliese van der Pol really slayed on that show and deserves more recognition for her genius comedic work. Also that particular episode is about everyone performing loud, crazy things all over/all the time, because they think that there’s an undercover talent scout at their school… which, at least in my opinion, epitomizes the way the internet feels these days).
When I first got the walkie, I was very nervous that I wouldn’t know how to use it, but I channeled my inner dyke and figured it out. I spent 2 glorious hours paging a man named “Mark” and telling him to “send 5 more [clients] down”.
Most of the clients that came through the pod were elderly folks and the occasional young hype-beast with a pre-existing condition. One woman looked at me and said, “this is like voting!” and I was like “ya!” By the end of the day, any of them could have said or done anything to me, and I would’ve been like “ya!” I was delirious. My back and shoulders and legs were numb from standing and the wet-cold weather. At one point, someone brought us all hand warmers and they saved my life. I still do not understand the science behind those things, and I do not want to.
Sitting down for lunch felt like winning the lottery and having sex at the same time. I randomly ate a Subway turkey sandwich that they provided even though I am a Vegetarian. I looked at my phone for the first time all day and saw that a JCC personal trainer from my hometown got engaged and captioned his photo: “god is awesome and led me to Janet!” I thought “that’s nice”, wrapped up my turkey, and headed back down to monitor some more flow.
When I got downstairs and back to my VISIBLE! post, a man in line said “I am actually from the DOH, who is your pod leader? I wonder if I know them?” My dumb sleep-deprived ass said “Jennifer” and then was like “well there are actually two Jennifers in charge” and he was like “Jennifer what?” and I said one of their last names, and then he moved forward in line and was probably like “who is this idiot, I don’t know a Jennifer” and then I realized that both Jennifer’s names were actually Jessica, and I leaned against the wall and defeatedly said, “Mark, send 5 more down.”
I FORGOT TO MENTION THAT A HUGE PART OF BEING A FLOW MONITOR/ VOLUNTEER IS THAT YOU GOT TO WEAR A NEON VEST! I love a vest.
At the beginning oof the day, I kept being like, “you think we’re gonna get vests?” and Aaron and Chris were like, “I dunno, Megan” and then WE GOT THEM and I felt like 1 million bucks. What can I say? I need something inspiring to help me get along, I need a little fabulous vest, is that so wrong? … God, two Disney Channel references in one day… what has gotten into me?
(I think it’s because for some reason right now my TikTok feed is full of either Yeshiva girls dancing with their Rabbis or Disney Channel child stars being like “Yeah, that’s right, it’s me! Your favorite kid-actor from the hit show Mars on The Moon!” or whatever. Then they’re like: “Look at me now! I am older. Bet ya didn’t expect THAT!” TikToks like this get 9 million likes and follows and for what? Because in 2005 they spun a banana on their head during a casting call and a man with shaggy hair who smelled like cigarettes said “ur it, kid!”
Come to think of it, a spinning-head-banana moment would probably sell me… never mind, maybe I get it…
One time I was driving in Los Angeles with my grandmother (who iconically has a license plate that reads: I Shlep’m) and we passed a billboard with Miley Cyrus on it and I was like, “I can sing like her, I can act like her, I could be her.” And my grandma said, “you know, I could make that happen, I know a lot of people in the industry.”
She does not. She knows a lot of Jews who she meets in the Gelson’s parking lot (which she calls her parking lot) and if their name remotely resembles a celebrity’s last name, she assumes that they are that celebrity’s grandparents. This applies especially to names that end in blatt, thal, eiss, berg, witz, etc.
My grandma is awesome. She wears big sunglasses and runs fundraisers for Planned Parenthood. She has a pinball machine in her house and last week she ate brisket that has been in her freezer for over a year. She doesn’t really cook but for some reason is always on her way to Mr. Kosher (a butcher) on Ventura Boulevard...)
ANYWAY. I got sidetracked. Back to me helping everyone else in the world’s grandma get the vaccine…
After hours of helping people get their arms ready and watching old women flirt with the male volunteers, it was time for US to get vaccinated! As newsletter subscribers know, I am very scared of needles and pass out a lot. When it came time for me to get jabbed, I did my breathing exercises (that a Brooklyn-based comedian/doula taught me), and was like, “ok, stick it in.”
I DID NOT FAINT! And after it was over, I told the guy that I usually faint and he was like “you should’ve told me that before I gave you the vaccine”, and I was like no it’s ok I’m strong now, I just wore a vest and used a walkie for 4 hours. He was like, “yeah honestly, you didn’t even seem nervous”. And I said “wow thank you!” and kissed him on the lips! Just kidding! I did not! But guess WHAT? We stabbed over 1200 people. I didn’t get to see hot Matt at the end of the day, but I want him to know that it’s time for him to keel over! Time to fall into my newly-vaccinated arm and my other normal arm!
I had to give the vest back.
EXTRA:
I asked my senior pen pal about his vaccine experience, and he said: “Being the whore that I am, I flirted with all the male nurses."
I love him.
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-Meg
Social- @megspope@mpopetweets
Venmo- @mpope-venmo-26
Website- meganpopework.com
Donate to The Audre Lorde Project
Article Of The Week: https://publicseminar.org/2018/07/gender-as-colonial-object/
Vaccine Side Effects:
Thing That Made Me Laugh Of The Week:
The show is Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist. I love her.
I had another MFA interview:
The Golden Globes happened and Ben Stiller presenting jogged this memory:
I tweeted it and got awesome responses like this:
I love my fans.
Link to more photos from flow monitor day <3