Fred Bruning: A little exercise for my stiff upper lip

We got the new COVID-19 vaccine and, keeping to usual form, I slept for a day and a half. My wife, Wink, a sturdier and more resilient person all around, took a brief nap and got back to paying the bills.

“Arm’s sore,” I said at one point.

“Huh. Don’t feel much,” said Wink.

Eighteen hours of post-jab sleep is impressive, I think, but doesn’t come close to the 30 hours I logged after an earlier injection — four days’ worth of slumber in one zonk-a-thon, interrupted only for an occasional pit stop and, once, to nibble an English muffin. Exhausted, I was unconscious on the kitchen counter before the last buttery bite.

Wink has always been the tough one, anyway. We had four kids in five years — well, okay, Wink had four kids in five years, and, unless you include Marine recruit training, it’s difficult to imagine a surer formula than serial childbirth for achieving true grit. What at Parris Island could compare?

Through it all, I don’t remember Wink complaining about the rigors of pregnancy or exhaustion of all those special deliveries. As a person apt to pray for deliverance if experiencing transient stomach cramps following a smothered bean burrito, I remain in awe of her moxie.

Of course, even someone as stalwart as Wink might have gasped had she assessed early on that those precious bundles she steadfastly launched into the world would, soon enough, be restless teenagers who, when not crashing the family auto into the garage door (more than once), or sequestering six-packs of Budweiser behind the bushes, were going to end up in college at the same time.

In any event, it is hardly surprising all these years later that Wink takes the quirks and disturbances of old age with courage and grace, and that if you had to bet who was going to collapse into beddy-bye after a COVID shot and remain there for nearly half a week, it would be the skittish half of the marriage partnership.

“C’mon, you can make it,” said Wink, helping me to my feet somewhere along the line.

“I wish we had a chair lift,” I groaned.

For all their love of ice hockey and war movies, men can be curiously wimpish on such matters while women emerge as the quiet heroes of everyday life. It’s a generalization, I know, and based on a statistical sample of one — me — but I can offer anecdotal evidence drawn from our own family.

I have a daughter, for instance, who, even as a little girl, was determined to watch as the doctor gave an injection or searched for a vein.

“Oh, wow,” might be her only response, clearly her mother’s daughter.

On the other hand, her middle-age brother finally went to the doctor for his first check-up in 10 years. Like his father, he was a wreck for days before.

Men avoid doctors because we are by nature catastrophists. Show me a man who heads to his annual exam humming, “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’ ,” and I will show you a fellow who prepped himself with several mojitos.

With all that pushing and poking who knows what your friendly practitioner will find?

“C’mon, what are you worried about?” a cheery, young medical technician asked before my annual physical.

“Wait until you’re my age,” I sighed.

For men, the end is always near, you see. And with us gone, where would the world be? That’s the issue manifested in the examining room. Men think they are essential and the doctor may announce otherwise.

Avoidance is inevitable.

When Wink and I arrive for shots of any sort, I go first. Better to get it over with, I figure, and also I want Wink on standby should I need resuscitation.

“Just go ahead,” she says. “You’ll be fine.”

At our local Walgreens, a sweet pharmacist administered the latest injection.

“I don’t like shots,” I told her.

“Of course not,” she said softly, rubbing alcohol on my arm.

“Never have.”

“Done,” she announced.

Wink goes next. No hesitation. No bid for sympathy or attempt to flee.

“Nothing to it,” she says. “Let’s get lunch.”

We had grilled cheese and Cokes but I wouldn’t have minded a mojito.