A week ago, we tried going to Harris Teeter to get our flu shots. We made the appointments online and even put in our insurance information when we made the appointments. We chose Harris Teeter because they were giving $5 gift certificates for getting your flu shot.
I took Alice with me. For those who don’t know, this was Alice’s last outing as a service dog in training. I decided to wash her that night.
I also took my wheelchair because I didn’t know if they’d have places to sit while we were waiting.
We showed up and went to the pharmacy to check in. It was a good thing I brought my wheelchair because while they did have seats on the sides, they had no seats where you talk to the pharmacist. And that’s what I ended up doing a lot of. We spent about 20 minutes talking with the pharmacist trying to get our insurance to work with the Harris Teeter system and approve us getting flu shots.
At the start of the waiting, Alice was mildly uncomfortable and Brad got a few pictures. But she got more and more uncomfortable as the time went on. Eventually I was done with waiting and putting Alice through the discomfort, so we said we’d go pick up a few items we needed and come back. Brad stopped taking pictures when Alice started getting more uncomfortable.
When we went away from the pharmacy, Alice was much happier. We picked up our five or so things we needed, and got a few pictures in the process.
Alice was even feeling good enough to try a little floor walking in one aisle. She did OK but didn’t want to move out of the way for a cart and didn’t want to walk past anyone.
Brad also worked on getting a fun photo in the freezer section. He went backwards quickly and I came at him at the same speed while he took pictures. This made the background blurry but Alice and me in focus.
Then we headed back to the pharmacy and it turns out that they said they’d given up and we should just go get our flu shots elsewhere. All that waiting for nothing!
So we checked out and headed home. So our outing was all for naught. No flu shots, and I learned with how Alice was acting that she really wasn’t probably going to be able to make it as a service dog who needs to go to new places frequently.
But at least we got some good pictures! In them I am wearing my Japanese Chin leggings and a pink top. Alice is wearing a purple harness. You get to see Brad’s reflection in some sunglasses and a mirror in a couple of the pictures, and all you can tell is that he has a brown sweater on. There are pictures of us waiting at the pharmacy, us zipping around the store, some of the floral department, Alice walking, and the neat shot Brad got in the freezer aisle.
