It's the season for allergy attacks to take you down
The experts tell us that this has been and will continue to be one of the most difficult seasons for people suffering from allergies.
By allergies, I mean when your nose is so blocked up with particles of things too disgusting to describe on paper that it would take a blowtorch or a stun gun set on “rhinoceros takedown” to clear the airways.
You may think you are an allergy sufferer, but the true test is if you have to buy extra-strength Kleenex that come with the warning label, “Caution, this product may also be used by contractors to mix with cement for the purpose of making layers to use in building a home foundation.”
But it’s not just blocked-up noses that make folks walk around trying to communicate with sign language, but runny, watery eyes too. I saw a woman suffering from the effects of allergies that looked like she had sat through three days of watching the movie “Terms of Endearment.”
Oh, it doesn’t have to be a film, either; sometimes the tears remind us of those long-distance telephone service commercials, where the mother is sitting on the front porch in her rocking chair over the holidays just waiting for a phone call from her children. The music hits a high note when the phone rings and she smiles as she recognizes the voices of her kids. Of course, what they are not telling you is that the phone call was placed from a purse that jostled the speed dial, and the children actually live next door.
Some people are so sensitive to what is floating around in the air that just opening and reading their cable bill is enough to trigger a reaction, sending a waterfall of tears streaming down their cheeks, into their mouths, where drool forms and seeps down their collar into their neck.
OK, that was just me and it had nothing to do with allergies; more than likely it was the price of the sports package that I didn’t know someone in my house had signed up for.
I know it can be too much information, but allergies are not a pretty picture.
Age has a funny way of evening things out, though. I used to never suffer from allergies. I went from season to season humming along without a care in the world. Well, actually I had lots of cares, but none of them involved perusing the pharmacy aisles for medicine for the coughing, sneezing, itchy, watery eyes symptoms. Mostly I was on the other side of the pharmacy in sections where products were sold for abnormal growths and such.
Anyway, when I am really vulnerable to the point that finding my car in a parking lot is the highlight of the day, Mother Nature rings my doorbell and says, “Remember me?”
Foolishly, I thought she was returning my car keys; although I found where I parked my car, I had to take a taxi home because I couldn’t find the keys, which I believe I dropped into a charity kettle instead of change.
Apparently the clipboard she was holding showed that I had gotten away without any effects from spores, ragweed, dust, mites, and all the other good things she provides during the season.
Now I’m walking around with what most people consider a foreign accent; this condition is caused because no air has been though my nasal passages since Dewey beat Truman in the presidential election. If I even try to blow my nose, the noise is so deafening that it attracts major followings of Canada geese in the mistaken belief that I am their new pack leader.
Allergies can strike at any time. Certainly as you age, you will come down with conditions you thought you were immune to; let’s hope we are still safe from diaper rash, measles and anything beginning with the letter D.
