The United Center mass vaccination site isn’t actually in the arena itself, but under a set of interconnected tents set up in one of the arena’s parking lots, there on the Near West Side of Chicago. We weren’t there on Friday afternoon to get vaccinated ourselves, since that continues to be elusive, though I expect that to change before too long.

Rather, we’d come to escort a family friend, a little old Japanese lady Yuriko knows well, who is somewhat infirm and has limited English. I’d managed via the appropriate web site to make a first shot appointment for her for early Friday afternoon, so off we went to the city.

With some trepidation that the on-site organization might be slapdash. Parking might be an issue. Lines might be long. Maybe no one would know what’s going on. Maybe her appointment would have been mysteriously cancelled, or there would be no record of it.

Maybe there would be indications that the federal effort to vaccinate the nation was a hopeless fiasco.

Reports of shifting eligibility for the shots at the United Center didn’t bode well for things. A couple of post-registration emails didn’t foster a sense of confidence in the effort, either. A day or so after the initial registration, which was for 1:30 on Friday, I got an email saying the the appointment had been changed to 3 on Friday. OK, fine.

A few hours later, I got another email telling me to ignore the first email, and that the appointment was still at 1:30. Hm. I wouldn’t have been surprised if I’d received another email saying that the people who’d sent the first erroneous email had been sacked — and then another message saying that the people who’d sacked the first set of people had been sacked. And maybe a report that a møøse was løøse, biting people.

Anyway, we drove in from the northwest suburbs, arriving just after 1. Parking, at least, wasn’t an issue, with plenty of people guiding cars into another of the United Center lots. We walked from that lot, across a street, toward the vaccination tents.

No long lines, either, though the site was set up for them.

The entrance to the vax tents was in was practically in the shadow of the 960,000-square-foot United Center and other buildings.

I’m glad to report that the process was simple and without delay. This particular site, at least, had no whiff of fiasco about it. Everything was well organized. Plenty of people — mostly members of the 101st Airborne Division — were on hand to point you to each step: checking in, health questions, and then the vaccination.

It took less than five minutes from the entrance to the waiting area after the shots, where you’re supposed to wait for 30 minutes to make sure you don’t have a funny reaction. So we waited. That was the longest part of the process by far.

The only slightly irritating moment involved signing up for the booster. Point your phone at this QR code, said signs with large QR codes on them, and it will start the process of signing up for you. I’ve been down this road before. I point my phone at a QR code and it does precisely nothing. There must be a step missing that I don’t know about, and no one ever mentions, because everyone who knows about it assumes everyone else knows about it. That’s a common problem with tech, I find, but ultimately not a big deal in this case.

Staff with iPads were on prowl looking for people who couldn’t use the QR code for one reason or another, and soon one of them had signed our friend in for her second shot, which will be in early April back at this same temporary vax complex.