Fully jabbed, sore, restless, and confused

As part of the preparations for winter and upcoming trips, Mrs. Ottawacker and I went this morning to the Shoppers Drug Mart in Old Ottawa South to get our Covid and flu vaccines administered. The nurse doing the job was lovely, pleasant and friendly. Mrs. Ottawacker was in and out in a jiffy (wait a second, isn’t that my role?) but the nurse, unfortunately, noticed my accent and started off on the well-rehearsed routine for all British people in Canada, which I like to call the “Oooh, haven’t you got a lovely accent?” routine.
 
Normally, I don’t mind. Routines like this give me a chance to polish up my improv and develop new characters. To questions like “how long have you been here?”, my answers can vary from “three months” to “forty years”. I have been a stowaway on a cargo plane, an unsuccessful basketball player, and a candidate for governor general; the trick is divining early on how likely the interlocutor is to believe you. This time, however, I was in somewhat of a bad mood (the curry having kept me awake for much of the night and then one of the cats doing the same as I finally dropped off to sleep). So, I gave her the true story. Anyway, I must have been quite engaging, because the next thing I know there is a sharp pain in my shoulder and she has massacred my arm with what felt like a knitting needle.
 
“Oh, I am sorry love,” she said, “I was listening to what you were saying and not paying attention to the needle. I gave you both of the vaccines in the left arm, sorry about that.”
 
I smiled sweetly and left. Mrs. Ottawacker was not in the slightest bit sympathetic. I drove home, while recounting a message fest I had had with some distant relatives in BC. Now, sit down, this is a doozy.
 
My stepmother, who is in England, had parents from Devon (mother) and Scotland (father). The Scottish branch of the family has developed its own diaspora, and so I have currently step-relations (some of whom I have not met) all over the place (including BC). It was from one of the step-relations I have not met that I got a message, along with a friend request, on Facebook. Naturally, I am suspicious of accepting requests from strangers; I accept drinks, food, occasional hospitality, and money – but rarely friend requests. So I sent a message asking Maureen (for that was her name) if the request was legit (and also to check it wasn’t some bot or scammer). Now, most people would have said something like “yes, of course it is, you moron,” or something similar. She, however, sent me the following message:
 
“It is indeed, I am Laura’s sister who has found our Jewish family members :) Our dad's father was Jewish. Our grandfather was a man named Joseph Pl**off. I'm on a quest to see whether my dad was a one off.  That perhaps Nanna P either had an affair or was the victim of a sexual assault.  have you had your DNA done and does it show any Ashkenazi Jew background, because me, Laura, Norah and Will all have between 25 and 30 percent, which suggests one of our parents was 50 percent Jewish. It's not mom, we had her tested. So, it must be dad.”
 
To this, I answered: “I’d have accepted with a ‘hello’ :)”
 
We then back and forthed while I explained I was in that side of the family only via marriage and not blood. In a way, I am a little disappointed, because it’s quite an exotic story and would be fun to relate at dinner parties and surmise about what had happened. But I offered to tell my stepsister about it and see what I could do to track down any information she needed.
 
To this, she answered, “Oh, I’ve been talking about this with E for ages,” which shocked me a little bit, as I had been talking to my stepmother that morning (who lives with my stepsister) and neither of them had said a word. I don’t know about you, but if I discovered I was a quarter Ashkenazi Jew, or a quarter Italian, or a quarter Russian or Mongolian or Martian, I’d be pretty certain to mention it to other members of my family… whether we be related by blood or by marriage.
 
I’ll keep you posted as to what happens next. I just wonder how hard the nurse would have jabbed me had I started to share this story?