The pollen count in Florida is currently at very high levels. This was pretty obvious to me when I went camping as the pollen from the pine trees were drifting down to settle upon everything like a fine urine-colored snow. I was wearing a big floppy hat on the trip to protect my fair red haired vampire skin from the evils of the sun god Ra, and every now and then I would pull my hat off and give it a little shake and a fine mist of pollen would shake loose.
I have mild allergies. It's not anything too bad, however it is annoying. My nose itches and fills up with snot, and my eyes will sometimes get itchy. Pretty mild stuff. I have seen other people have scary allergic reactions and their face will puff up in grotesque ways giving them the appearance of a weeping Quasimoto. In fact I recall the first time I met my friends step dad, we were walking up behind him and he turned around and one eye was puffed up and red and practically streaming eye-bile from the corner. I actually backpedaled a step, thinking he had some sort of horrid disease. Through a thick tongue he mumbled out "Excuse me, I am having an allergic reaction". At the time I thought, "You sure are, pal."
My allergies are mild enough that it was decades before I even knew I had them. On top of pollen I am also mildly allergic to cats. These days a clariton every couple of days keeps things in check, but when I was a kid (growing up with a couple of cats) my nose was always stuffed and running. I was basically a snot-nosed kid. There was nothing unusual about it, there's a lot of snot nosed kids running around out there. I did not know it was the allergies causing my nose to itch. I used to end up unconsciously rub my nose bloody in my sleep. I would wake up with blood on my hands and my pillow with no idea where it came from, a great thing for a young developing mind to experience.
When I finally went away to college up north and experienced my first real winter in years as all the plant life shriveled up around me and died, my nose opened up and I was able to breath. It was an amazing experience. Since then I have fed myself a steady diet of allergy pills. During the day it's a clariton every now and then, sometimes at night I take a benadryl because the stuff knocks me out. (It has the same ingredient as sleeping pills)
Indecently, if your ears every hurt when you ride an airplane, pope a couple of Benadryls before you board the plane. I used to loath plane rides because they would cause my ears to hurt like holy hell. I have no idea why, but instead of my ears popping the pressure would just build and build until it felt like a couple of ice picks going into my ears. And the effects would last for a long time after I got off the plane. When they finally popped, sometimes a day later, it would be with such a sudden sharp pain that it would cause me to gasp and my eyes would water. I asked my ear doctor at the time about that, and she suggested Benydryl, and I have never had a problem with ears and airplanes again.
Anyways, I ran out of clariton on the camping trip. On top of the pollen there were also several hundred small campfires burning. The resulting smoky haze was so bad I could not even wear my contacts, they just sort of gummed up. Luckily I had brought along my nine-dollar glasses and thus was not left blind as well as deaf. It would have sucked to be left groping Helen Kellerish through the dark woods, perhaps with a number hippies hooting and throwing granola at me.
I still have not gotten some more allergy medicine and as a result I did not get much sleep last night, waking up every couple of hours and blowing my nose. I keep reminding myself to stop at the drugstore but when the day ends all I can think of doing is happily hooting and running out of the office and going home to play. Perhaps tonight I will be able to remember that little errand. Perhaps.
Dialing back to April 3, 2007, where Florida's pollen falls like urine-colored snow and Ed's plans are already crusting over.
Ah, 2007. A simpler time: a man could shake his hat and rain yellow misery on the forest, confident that the only consequences were itchy eyes and a bloody pillow. You lived on Claritin and Benadryl like they were sacraments, Ed, and the drugstore was an errand you could heroically postpone for days. Now? Your phone would ping with a pollen alert, an air quality index, and three delivery apps all offering antihistamines in under an hour—and you would still stare at the screen, thumb hovering, wondering why you feel tired. We've upgraded the pain: instead of waking up with blood on your hands, we wake up with a notification that it's 'high allergy season' and a subscription we forgot to cancel. Contacts have gotten more tolerable, glasses have gotten more expensive, and campfire smoke now has an official scale. But some things never change: the nose itches, the snot flows, and internet strangers still feel compelled to warn everyone about Benadryl and airplanes.
“2007 Ed, you saw the pollen falling like urine-colored snow, you knew you were out of Claritin, and you went camping anyway. Were you hoping for a dramatic face puff, or did you just want an excuse to shake your hat at the forest?” — Beelzebubba the Third
2007 Ed: Well, Beelzebubba, I’d love to say I was chasing some dramatic face puff, but the truth is I’m just stubborn and dumb. Camping was planned weeks ahead, the pollen was a surprise, and I figured a floppy hat and a half-empty bottle of Benadryl would see me through. Turns out I was wrong, but that’s kind of my specialty. The hat shaking was a nice side benefit, sure, but I wasn’t out there hoping to turn into a weeping Quasimodo. I already do that every spring without trying. And honestly, any excuse to stand in the woods and sneeze while hippies hoot at me is better than sitting in the office under those buzzing fluorescents. I still haven’t bought more Claritin, by the way. Maybe tonight. Probably not. Take that, pollen.
