Surprise! The Calgary Flames are more important than you! Yes, you. And we all know important people are allowed to do whatever they want. It’s just one of those dismal truths in life: Kanye West gets to get ripped on coke, don his ridiculous shades and publicly indict people for tastelessness, Miley Cyrus baits pedos and laughs about it and all your favourite late 90s divas drift in and out of rehab spa vacations weekly — “Hooray, another stint done! Heroin party!”–while the rest of us wait, razorblades poised, for their latest twitter updates.
So why is it such a difficult fact to digest that the Flames, who clearly deserve more than other Calgarians, got exactly that in the form of one less week of waiting to get the H1N1 flu vaccination? Surely, they fit the bill for the ideal vaccine candidate, right? Let’s see, are they: pregnant women? Let’s hope not; people who live with or care for children younger than six months of age? Well, okay, yeah, some of them; health care and emergency medical services personnel? That would be a rad night job; persons between the ages of six months and 24 years old? Ha ha, a baby playing hockey.
Catch the drift? By the science, they are the same as you and me, so some quacks are running around claiming they should get the vaccine the same as you and me — after standing in an hours-long line, that is. Science isn’t everything, though, so let’s talk about what else has got you down.
“We don’t have two-tier health care in Canada, right?” cbc.com comment, with implied sarcastic voice.
A: Well, obviously there is — one tier of flames fans and one tier of spoil-sports like yourself.
“This is an absolute mockery of the entire vaccine program. Perhaps the high risk group of pregnant women and children should consider wearing Flames jerseys should they have any hope of receiving the vaccine under Mr. Stelmach’s watch.” cbc.com comment.
A: So true. The world does need more Flames jerseys. Otherwise how would we know which team we’re cheering for?
“Hey hockey wives can you look after patients on ventilators[?] [B]ecause it appears that your health is more important than my family’s and those of people with chronic medical conditions[.]” cbc.com comment.
A: Good idea. Let’s also put up a triage in the Avison Young Club so that injured players (30 beds), fans infected by the horrible, selfish actions of the Flames (60 beds) and fans who just drank a little too much (okay we’re gonna need more beds) can get the appropriate long term care and coddling they expect and deserve from a professional hockey franchise. Then, we can use the hot nurse hockey wives to staff it!
Seriously, though, where do these jerks get off? Better yet, why does any celebrity get better stuff than us lowly proles? Hold on to your razorblades: because you’re sweating your bag off to give it to them! Do you really blame the Flames for accepting a shot that was clearly arranged and administered by rabid Flames fans? If you do, evidently you’ve never met a rabid Flames fan — It’s a bad idea to argue with them about anything.
Clearly, having accounted for 60/7,000,000ths (0.00086 per cent) of the vaccination shortage in Canada makes these guys reprehensible criminals who should be, I dunno, drawn and quartered or fed tainted ham (for irony’s sake) or injected with super-AIDS or something. Or, we could look at the bright side: if we sent the infected children whose doses were stolen by the Boogey-Flames to stay with their relatives in Edmonton for a while, there’s a good chance the Oilers, who apparently nobody likes enough to dose, won’t offer a hint of challenge in the next Battle of Alberta.
What else is new?