The Plaid Pladd

It sometimes feels like I have spent my entire life suffering from allergies. I’ve learned to live with it as best I can, knowing that I can’t visit my grandparents in the country without either taking so much medication that I get woozy or being unable to breathe. Cats are the main offenders and, like the slightly sinister, prescient beings they are, they naturally gravitate towards me because of this. But even if I avoid them like graduate students fleeing a hornet-infested classroom (funny story…), I still have to contend with all of this nature that seems to have sprung up everywhere.

At least, until now.

The trees here are greeting the return of warm weather by bathing us all in smoky clouds of yellow. I washed Trixie yesterday afternoon and when I went out to get the mail just after dinner it already looked like she had had some kind of run in with the car version of Goldfinger. Everyone in my classes is hacking and sniffling. And yet, I am fine. I at first assumed that I had died without noticing.

Then the girl sitting next to me told me that the best way to fight allergies is to eat the local honey, since it has been made with that same pollen. Like a tasty, tasty vaccination. It occurs to me that I have been eating extremely local honey bought at the farmer’s market for months now. Could my allergies finally have been cured from homeopathic, hippie folk wisdom?? Has my interest in farmer’s markets from my Literature and the Environment class at far off Rice actually saved my life? I assumed so.

Then I called my parents and they were all like “Allergies take a while to kick in, wait till next year and you’ll feel like you’re DYING”. Thanks, Mom and Dad.

Whatever, in the face of logic, I am going to embrace my smelly, hippie brethren and believe that they know what they’re talking about. You can tell how long it’s been since I’ve seen Jeremy Caves, the force of his good-natured, Parmesan-loving, eco-pushing personality is starting to wear off. I don’t think I’m prepared to punch someone for not recycling anymore as JerBear so often recommended. You’ll notice that JerBear has his own tag on my blog, though he would probably be too busy contesting this nickname to feel honored. Brian Reinhart is the only other person to have won this achievement (through his treachery).