Pollen Nation

Isn't spring great? Don't you just love the warm weather and the blue skies? The flowers are in bloom, and the sun is warm, people are out running and walking, scantily clad in exercise clothes. I love the brilliant colors of the ah...uh...aachooooo....azaelea bushes, and scent of lilacs in the air. This is my very uh..uhhh....uh CHEEEEW.... favorite time of the year. Please excuse me dear readers, this is peak pollen season in DC. I hope I didn't get anything on you with that last sneeze.

In spite of the unpleasant symptoms of hay fever, I can never quite bring myself to stay inside on a beautiful day. I have this crazy attraction to all things bad for me, sun, cigarettes, women. Since today was an exceptionally perfect day, I spent most of it outside digging up the ground to lay some pavers. I want to build a small area for a barbecue grill, and a path from the house to the driveway. It's not very hard, you just have to dig up about 6 inches of dirt, spread a base of gravel, and place the pavers in a pattern. Did I say it wasn't hard? What I meant to say that it isn't rocket science, but the digging and the schlepping of bricks is hard physical work. After a three hours, my shoulders were sore, and my hands seemed to be noticeably larger than they were this morning, and throbbed painfully with every brick I moved. I decided that my project was going to take a few more weeks than I had planned.

After swallowing a handful of Advil, I felt fit enough to take a short bike ride. Riding my bike is also not rocket science, but since I'm a middle aged woman who smokes, it is also hard physical work. Still, I love a good bike ride, it clears my head, and my doctor tells me that the exercise benefits me in some way. I hopped on my bike, and made my way up River Road to the bike trail. The air was filled with tiny objects, floaty particles that I could actually see in the air. As I pedalled hard up the hill on River Road, my breathing became heavy, and I thought I could feel those little fuzzy things descending my esophagus and making a home in the tiny folds of my lungs. I thought that one had actually become stuck on the way down, and I stopped and hacked for a few seconds, before I felt well enough to continue with my ride. Once on the trail, it was dark enough that I couldn't see the fuzzies, but I became disturbed with an image of giant clumps of fuzz growing in my lungs, and I decided that it was time to head for home. The ride home was difficult, and since my nose was now clogged with pollen, I was taking huge gulps of air, and my eyes were beginning to itch.

I needed Claritin.

Unfortunately, I had taken my last Claritin yesterday, and last week, I had bought all that the CVS would sell to me. I had to show my ID, and sign some kind of paper. I gave half of the pills to my wife, since I always take hers (I don't like going to the CVS, signing all the papers, and feeling like I'm doing something slightly illegal). So now I found myself with clumps of fuzz growing in my lungs, and a nose that was completely useless to the pulmonary process, and completely out of the legal drugs that would relieve my symptoms. If I wanted to buy tequila, I could buy several cases of it at one time. I could max out my credit card purchasing as many cigarettes as I could afford.

If I had a gun registration card, I could buy enough bullets to shoot up a whole mall full of people, even if I were bat-shit crazy.

Someday, our Senators may decide that selling one bullet at a time makes more sense than making it hard for law-abiding citizens to find relief from hay fever or the common cold.

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