Allergies and why they suck...

... A lot!

Well, as it turns out I did in fact have some pretty bad allergies when I was a child. At least, that is, according to my father.

In his version of events I had horrible allergies every year right around Halloween. I think he is full of shit. Halloween has always been just about my favorite holiday and I don't remember ever not being able to go out because of something like allergies. Of course, being that it is my favorite holiday, I may very well have blocked such a traumatic event out.

Moving along with the point of this blog...

When I moved to Tennessee a few years ago, I wound up sick and layed up for a couple weeks. Now it turns out that it may have been allergies.

And when I moved to Texas two and a half years ago... All doubt went out the window.

For those of you who don't know, Austin is nicknamed the allergy capitol of the world. Please... Let me be the first to tell you that it is very very VERY true.

Seasons don't exist here as they do anywhere else in the world. The seasons here, as I have observed, are as follows;

Summer
Crickets
Grey (only lasts about two weeks)
Cedar
and Summer again

Please, don't make the mistake of assuming that these seasons line up with regular seasons elsewhere either. The first year I was here we had 4 Cedars and 2 Crickets... I am assured that the year before I got here Grey included something called An Ice. (Yes, it warrants the capitalization. Supposedly it is where "Gawd" or some-such being takes "like a tablecloth of ice and snaps it out there, see, and it settles on the whole danged city and ain't no one movin' till it melts, right? 'Cause if gawd put it there he's gonna pick it up again, soon as 'is friends is finished with dinner") I have not yet witnessed the mythical Ice but I am assured by those who have that it is, indeed, impressive.

Anyway...

I have asthma. (Which of course means that any time something goes wrong with me my breathing is affected.) And so every time I get used to the allergens in the air and find myself able to breathe again... The freaking wind changes and I have to start over from square one!

Case in point...

Austin is in the middle of a drought. We have had a succession of 100+ degree days (enough to make a new record from what I have been told) and if you think the weather sucks wherever you happen to be then BITE YOUR TONGUE AND BE THANKFUL!!!!... I'm just sayin' is all.

So the other day it rained. Finally!

For about four and a half minutes.

Just enough to bring back the wonderful mold allergens that kick everyone's ass and makes it damned near impossible for me to draw breath without hacking up a quarter of a lung.

All of you here, reading this, are hereby named witness.

The day I am pronounced dead by way of blunt force trauma to the head it was NOT my roommate that killed me. That's right. It was NOT her despite the blood spatters from my room to hers and the still-wet blood on the hammer beneath her bed.

What killed me was the gods damned allergens.

Whether she finally gave in to my begging and pleading to be put out of my misery or if she just finally snapped and decided I needed to be stopped so she could sleep makes no difference at all. It was Austin and the allergens it produces that killed me.

So sayeth the me and so shall the truth be known!

Amen.

"The difference between an itch and an allergy is about a hundred bucks"