If it was just a cold I could deal with that. I would take some medicine and in a day or two I’d feel hunky-dory. But when Mother Nature bitch slaps you with an insanely high tree pollen count you might as well through in the towel, turn off the hepa filter and pour the Claritin D down the drain. It doesn’t help.
I’ve felt like hell for almost a week now. Between sniffles and snot there comes the coughing and yacking and then the routine begins again. And, like Sisyphus, I keep trying, despairingly, to roll that boulder up the mountain by plying my sinuses with Western and Eastern therapies.
Per my doctor I take a daily cocktail of Claritin D, eye drops and nose sprays in the hopes that I’ll clear my head and survive the day’s mixture of pollen, city pollution and bus fumes. I even bother to give myself a periodic sinus bath with the neti pot hoping to wash away the particulate debris.
But this leads me to the chaos and embarrassment caused by the vile neti pot.
The trick, it seems, is to thoroughly drain your sinuses once the pot has done its duty. The problem is, if you have cavernous ones like I do this is nearly impossible. Somehow the salt water solution winds its way deep into the recesses of my skull where I cannot draw them from. It isn’t until hours later, having nearly forgotten about the sloshing water inside my face, that the tragedy occurs.
Picture it. It is a quarter to ten in the morning. People are filing into the office. A few of us have been there for the last hour or so, hoping to get a jump start before the multitudes of coworkers create a cacophony. One of my colleagues, who has been plunking away at her computer since before I arrived, turns to me and says, “Oh, hey, since you’re here would you take a look at this report and let me know if you see anything odd?”
“Sure,” I say and lean over her desk.
Standby for shrieking.
“OH MY GOD!” I hear those three words screeched out and hands push me backward. My colleague’s face is contorted in fear and disgust. “Gross!” she screams.
It takes me a moment but I suddenly realize that pouring (not a drizzle, not a drop, not even a dribble… but pouring) from my left nostril is a thick stream of salt water and funk, splattering her desk with ick.
“OH MY GOD!” This time, it is my turn to scream. I cup my hands over my nose and dart for the restroom. By the time I’ve cleaned up and returned to the office floor I see my colleague, sitting on the floor, smacking her hands into the carpet and laughing hysterically.
“You totally snotted on my desk!” Her fear has shifted into hysteria. Imagining the scene over in my head I start to laugh too. Embarrassing? Yes. Hilarious? Oh yes. We both end up crying from the cackling.
Ultimately I help clean up the mess and return to my desk. But the knowledge that somewhere, deep inside my head, another waterfall is waiting to happen keeps me sitting straight up, focused, the rest of the day.
So, the lesson here is, someone needs to find a cure for spring allergies once and for all… because none of this damned stuff is helping me!
Tommy Karr 