I was in kindergarten when I first heard the aphorism, “Variety is the spice of life.”
I distinctly remember that this happened in kindergarten, because the very next day, I experienced something like a spiritual awakening, while playing with the wooden blocks with my friend Rusty. We were building a castle, with plans to later bombard it from airplanes, and see if it could remain standing. As I recall the experience — this was a while back — a heavy rainstorm had just finished battering the asphalt playground outside, and the sun came out from behind a cloud and cast a beam of light directly on Rusty’s face, just as he was placing a triangular block atop the castle’s northwest watchtower.
I was struck by the realization that we had been blessed with an amazing variety of differently shaped blocks, and that Rusty — probably without even really thinking about it — had placed exactly the right size and shape block atop the tower.
I felt a sudden, pressing need to share my experience… and a phrase, spoken by my father at dinner the night before, spilled out of my five-year-old mouth.
“Rusty… variety is the spice of life.”
He looked at me (as I remember it) and said, “Are you feeling okay, Louis? You look… funny.”
I imagine I had a pulsing, glowing aura surrounding me at that moment, and that’s probably what Rusty was reacting to.
I looked around the room and noticed that everything — the child-sized maple furniture, the blackboard, the cubbies, the mobile hanging from the ceiling, the other students, our teacher at her desk — every single thing was surrounded by a pulsing, glowing aura. I noticed, in particular, the girls in the opposite corner of the room, playing house around the little blue-painted wooden kitchen. Each glowing girl had a slightly different hair color; each wore a different dress; each voice had its own pleasing characteristics.
Sugar and spice and everything nice. Spice is nice.
But what my father had not revealed to me is, variety is also the virus of life.
We’ve been hearing, lately, about “variants” with names like B.1.1.7 (United Kingdom)… B.1.351 (South Africa)… P.1 (Brazil)… B.1.1.207 (Nigeria)… B.1.427 and B.1.429 (United States).
I think of them as COVID spices. We humans sometimes think we’re the only species that appreciates variety. Obviously, the coronaviruses are totally trying to keep their own lives interesting. “You guys think you can stop us with a vaccine? Ha! We still have a few tricky mutations up our sleeves. Watch out, here come our variants!”
Not that the viruses have sleeves, of course. It’s just a figure of speech. And as far as I know, they can’t actually talk. But this is what they are thinking.
Then we have the side effects. Of the vaccines, I mean.
According to the FDA, the Pfizer vaccine is a veritable spice cabinet, where side effects are concerned:
- Difficulty breathing
- Swelling of your face and throat
- A fast heartbeat
- A bad rash all over your body
- Dizziness and weakness
- severe allergic reactions
- non-severe allergic reactions such as rash, itching, hives, or swelling of the face
- injection site pain
- tiredness
- headache
- muscle pain
- chills
- joint pain
- fever
- injection site swelling
- injection site redness
- nausea
- feeling unwell
- swollen lymph nodes
- diarrhea
- vomiting
- arm pain
From the April 6, 2021 FDA Fact Sheet linked above:
These may not be all the possible side effects of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine. Serious and unexpected side effects may occur. Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine is still being studied in clinical trials.
Variety. How boring life would be if everyone had exactly the same adverse reactions.
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all.