Pass Me the Tissue Box(es), Please

It's that time of year again. The sunlight is harsher looking, what was green isn't so green anymore, the horse shed another coat of hair and is growing in another, the ground is harder, and the sun sets a lot sooner. I used to love this time of year. I'd always feel more alive and energetic with the cooler temperatures, especially after a sweltering summer. New is just around the corner.

Yep, that's the upside, but not the entire story. Oh, no. There's more...

Add to it all a nonstop progression of sneezes so hard that, if I wore dentures, which I don't, I'd have to retrieve them from the other side of the room several times an hour. Add to the sunshiny upside the constant, perpetual, irritatingly noisy runny nose that refuses to give up the gold until there's no tissue close by. And, the sandpaper eyes half swollen shut while trying to pop out and away from this miserable thing at the top of my neck that is supposed to be a head instead of the cement block that it is. I'll be like this until the first frost, which won't happen here in Arkansas until, oh, February 2009 or so. If I come out of my September to January hibernation long enough to growl, be careful of the bite that will soon follow. Harrumph!

Yeah, I'm miserable. This is the downside. The whole, complete, underbelly of miserability. Someone threw the switch this morning, bright and early, and my explosive sneezing scared the living daylights out of my two pups. They are the newest additions to the family, so this is their first experience. All the other animals already know to ignore all the theatrics.

You know those pseudo drugs they sell over the counter that are supposed to ease the symptoms of hay fever? Well, here in Arkansas, there is this really big meth problem, and allergy drugs are used in the production of meth. If you want to buy them, you have to ask the pharmacist. The stuff left on the shelves has everything in them but the stuff drug dealers use.

That's no problem for me because I won't take allergy medication anyway. All they do is dry out my mouth and my eyes and put me out cold for 20 hours straight. They don't get rid of the sneezes or the running faucet of a nose or the stuffed cement block. So, I can be miserably awake or miserably asleep. The OTC stuff doesn't even bother drying me out or putting me to sleep; it just doesn't work at all.

It takes awhile, but I do usually adjust to having an allergy flare-up. Honest, I do. Eventually. Give me a few weeks. Then I'll adapt.

I'll stuff tissues everywhere. I'll have them in every pocket, in my purse, in my camera bag, under my keyboard, by my monitor, in my desk drawers (all of them), on my nightstand, under my pillow, next to my pillow, in the glove compartment, in the seat divider thingy, in both door pockets, on the dashboard and sometimes right on that little ledge in front of the speedometer. I might even pick up some of that anti-allergy nose spray. That will work for a few days, start to burn like crazy, and then I'll only use it when it is absolutely imperative that I don't sneeze, sniffle or drip.

I can actually get to the point where I feel relatively OK. Then, I am fully adjusted to having the attack and life is back to a sort of normal state again. Until. Until… Someone has the audacity to wear perfume! Or, cologne. Or the ever-lethal after-bath splash that aged women drown themselves in. Or, scented hairspray or deodorant. Or, wear clothes washed in scented laundry soap. Or, use Carpet Fresh, burn a candle or clean with bleach. But the worst, the absolute icing-on-the-cake thing that throws me for a loop every time is when my idiot neighbor will mow his lawn weeks after the grass has stopped growing! I won't have smelled anything, nada, zip, zilch, ze-ro, for weeks already, but if one of these smells come anywhere near me, I'm set back to the beginning. Yep, miserable; entirely and completely miserable. Again.

I'm begging you, pleading with you, I'll even pay you! Just leave all that stinky stuff at home when you go to Walmart or the grocery store or the feed store or in to work. Please! For the sake of all the allergy sufferers out there, leave your vanity in the closet - at least until the first frost. OK?