Stupid Thing of the Week

Last Sunday I got ambitious and threw myself into some yard work. I'd thought we had some white, cotton masks so I didn't grab any at the hardware store. I returned home to find that I was mistaken. "I'll just tough it out," I thought to myself.

Two-and-a-half hours later, I had mowed and weedwhacked my way through quite a bit of fire safety and beautification chores, and settled in for the evening. I had also inhaled my own body weight in powdered grasses and weeds, and my histamine levels quietly climbed through the roof.

That night my sinuses locked up tighter than a frog's butthole, my sample of Nasonex ran out (that shit's magic) and I didn't sleep worth a damn. The next day I realized that not only were my sinuses doomed, but that my upper respiratory didn't like the idea of me snorting a fat line of ragweed, either.

I've spent the last week metabolizing mother nature's insidious fluff, and coughing long, dry and hoarse, like a dog trying to hack up a block of wood. It sounds worse than it is, but it's still pretty f*%&ed up. I'm looking forward to sitting in a movie theater today and gagging and hacking and snorting. In between fits I plan to wheeze and squeal piglike, to summon up unspoken references of swine flu amongst the captive moviegoers who share my air.

Feeling better, though.