RANDOM THOUGHTS WHILE LINING UP FOR A FLU SHOT AT HILLSIDE MALL YESTERDAY:

- Some guys at work did the math: If Victoria charged a 25-cent toll to every car crossing a new Johnson Street bridge, the city could pay it off in 15 years.

- Your electricity bill says that in the event of a power outage you can look up power-outage information on the B.C. Hydro website. As Pender Island readers point out, this is a big help if your Internet provider is juiceless.

- A million-dollar drug bust in Vancouver uncovered ecstasy pills branded with the Olympic logo. Are these guys nuts? Gangsters might not fear the Canadian justice system, but running afoul of the IOC Brand Police is inviting big-time trouble.

Anyway, I got to the front of the flu-shot line and found I had been waiting to buy snow shovels instead. Apparently our priorities have shifted. A pandemic Victoria can handle, but the threat of snow? Forget the Tamiflu. Break out the Valium.

As for the H1N1 vaccine, you could probably find it in the bargain bin, piled high 10-for-a-dollar alongside the Atkins diet cookbooks, Arsenio Hall tapes and Y2K survival kits. OK, it's not really like that. There was, in fact, a steady stream of Victorians exercising their right to bare arms at the Hillside flu clinic yesterday.

But demand for the H1N1 shots has dropped rapidly enough that the Vancouver Island Health Authority will end its mass-immunization clinics after Dec. 18. After that, people can still get the shots from their doctors, a public-health unit or certain pharmacies.

Oh, but we're a fickle lot. A month ago, the lineups resembled the evacuation of Dunkirk, people both jittery and orderly as a combination of fear, low vaccine supply and high infection rate sent Islanders chasing the flu shot like the last Sony PlayStation on Christmas Eve. The province's medical health officer, Dr. Perry Kendall, held a daily briefing at the legislature, the media hanging on every word as he explained the relative merits of adjuvanted versus unadjuvanted vaccine and answered the pressing question of whether the Abbotsford Heat had budged in line.

Now? Supply is plentiful. H1N1 wasn't as harmful as we feared; as of Tuesday, it had killed 47 British Columbians -- sad, but nowhere close to the 400 to 800 who die of seasonal flu in a typical year. The flu has peaked. The anxiety has peaked. Demand has peaked.

Is it still worth getting the shot? Yes, says Kendall. "The virus is going to be around for a while." The vaccine has been proven safe, it's available, so why not? "It's like a free insurance policy."

Well, not exactly free. B.C. ordered 4.1 million doses at a cost of $32 million. About 40 per cent of us have received the shot. Even if that rises to 60 per cent, perhaps 1.6 million doses will remain. The vaccine has a shelf life of 18 months. We could stockpile it for next year, when it might have some use, try selling it to those in the Southern Hemisphere that can afford it, or (and let's remember that it's Christmas) simply donate it to the many more who can't.

The end of the clinics means VIHA, which devoted 6,000 worker-days to the vaccination blitz, can take some public-health programs off the back burner. Kindergarten students will be screened in January for dental, hearing and vision problems, something usually done in the fall, says VIHA's Sandra Herbison. The school immunization program that was interrupted in September will resume then, too. So will drop-in programs for parents of babies and toddlers.

Have to figure the public-health nurses -- and the retirees and other hospital nurses who augmented their ranks -- would be sick of giving shots by now, would be as tired as Tiger Woods on Valentine's Day. But no, it's been fun seeing everyone work together, said nurse Kathy McKenna, who gave me my needle, perhaps her 60th of the day. (It was less painful than watching So You Think You Can Dance.)

Besides, said fellow nurse Betty Poag, Canada's largest-ever vaccination campaign taught some valuable lessons for the next time -- and there will be a next time.

"When something more serious arrives, we will have this to learn from."