We get flu shots in our family.

We do it despite the fact that there are about 47 million reasons not to do this.  If you don’t believe me, just google “reasons not to get flu shots.” When you look at the results, remember that everything you see on the internet is true.

There’s one compelling reason we practically knock down our doctor’s door to get flu shots every fall.

Nope, it’s not ’cause the Center for Disease Control recommends flu shots.

Nope, it’s not ’cause our pediatrician said it’s a good idea.

Nope, it’s not ’cause I love torturing my kids with shots.

Nope, it’s not even ’cause it works.  Like last year… it didn’t work for us at all.

Here it is, the only reason to get my family flu shots:

Because it might work.

And might makes right!  Yeah, yeah, I know that “Might Makes Right” is supposed to refer to strength and force — but I like that I can hijack the phrase to mean possibilities.  To mean hope.

If you’ve ever:

• gone to bed early on Christmas night because you’re a touch under the weather
• only to get up 15 minutes later to take your kid to the emergency room because she has strep throat and needs antibiotics
• and spent 3 hours waiting for help because Christmas night is a terrible time to go to the emergency room
• and two nights later spent time pacing the hallway waiting for your husband to give birth to a kidney stone
• and tried to decide whether or not to force your husband to do an encore at the emergency room whether he agrees to go or not
• and then received a message from your friend who normally watches your kids while you work saying that she’s spent the last two days sanitizing her daughter’s vomit-laden bedding and clothes
• and then been in the middle of editing a blog post on illness, the flu, the holiday season and vomiting (and I mean right in the middle — like right now, for example) and had one of your kids start vomiting in the bathroom
• and had to take a break from typing about vomiting to go take care of actual, real vomiting

then you, too, might adopt a Might Means Right philosophy of life.

As I send this off into the internet ether, I cling to hope. The hope that this year’s flu shots worked.  The hope that tonight is not the night that I have to use the washer’s Sanitize cycle on six sets of bed linens.  The hope that the New Year will begin with fireworks and not with explosions.

Oh, I realize I should be hoping for things that are more profound.  And I do.  Somewhere deep down inside, I hope for things that are more meaningful.

But right at this moment, I hope no one else starts puking.

Thank you, Flu Shot, for making my hope possible.