English people are strange
English people are strange. My English friends, perhaps from the lack un-obscured sunlight, seasons that aren’t rainy, or vitamin D deficiencies, take every opportunity to go outside and sit in the sun. One of my good friends here balks at running more than fifty feet at one time because he’ll get all “shvitzy”… Yet he’ll stroll leisurely, sit for hours, and eat three course meals in 90 degree heat without a complaint...
But it’s not just the sun that keeps me in the cool embrace of AC, central heating, and carpeting; Nature has had a vendetta against me since my birth. Each spring “mother” nature decides to turn me into a puffy eyed, sneezing, hoarse voiced version of myself… “For what?” you ask… in the name of pollenization. I might be tempted to let it go, but nature kills me with mold and fungus in the fall and winter; and assaults my senses with flies and bees all summer.
So every time someone suggests brightly, “why don’t we eat outside?” or suggests ruining my Shabbos afternoons with a walk I feel like I’m being mugged. “Stick up your hands and give me mucus!” nature growls… And as my eyes begin to water and the bees dive-bomb my head my chipper friend opines, “Isn’t getting mugged fun!” It’s like the last scene in Sound of Music, sure they’d just escaped from becoming part of the Nazi war effort, but if you think that they were singing about how much fun it was to be hiking through the Alps you’re crazy. The real version probably went more like:
Maria: “The hills are alive, with the sound of music…”
Captain Van Trapp: Maria dear, could you shut up we’re trying to sneak away, emphasis on sneak… And keep swinging that machete, there’s a lot of brush we have to get through.
Maria: Sob
But it wasn’t supposed to be this way, for most of my adolescence I took allergy shots, ostensibly with the goal of “curing” my allergies. 6 years, thousands of pricks and a gallon of allergy serum later I still wake up with congestion from February till May… But I can give blood like a champ, so maybe something good came out if it. Each week my brother mother and I would travel to the hospital and sit in a waiting room with all the other unfortunate souls to be born with an intolerance to life. The prosecutor of my weekly castigation was a kind enough woman. I’d sit in the waiting room rereading the same Highlights for Kids that had been in the waiting room since I started coming to the hospital and she’d poke her head out: “Come on in Jones-Quarteys!” In her little office my mother and the nurse would make small talk as she prepared our injections, and when it was each of our turns to get dosed she’d usually interject some non-sequitur: “What do you think about the Redskins this year?” My fear of going outside also extended to participating and watching football at that age so I just answered based on her melancholy tone, “I’m not sure that this is gonna be a good year.” I intoned, “Maybe next year?” I never knew if I answered correctly, but it didn’t matter because by the time I had the words out of my mouth she’d moved on to my brother.
We got allergy shots so long that we saw many generations of allergy nurses. Each one with roughly the same technique and manner as the last… To the point that In my mind they all blend into one person. The first day a new nurse started was usually going to be a traumatic experience; without the expertise in exactly were the best spot for the injection was, that first day usually ended with a small lump on my arms that felt funny for a few hours. But the sympathy lollipop that I got on those days made it all worth it.
It’s strange but now, years after finally pulling myself out of the weekly woundings I sort of miss them. It was the one time that I was locked in that life or death struggle that man has always faced against elements much larger and much stronger than himself… We can fence out bears, ford streams and flatten mountains…but when it comes to my allergies, nature is winning.
