Air, air everywhere and not a breath to breathe
By Redoubt
Ah, springtime in the great Southland! The azaleas are blooming, the kudzu is climbing and the air is thick as grits with vegetable sex!
Ahem. Yes, well... you will please forgive my choice of words but, that’s exactly what it is. Veggie sex, or pollen, and if you’ve never taken a deep breath that included a heaping helping of nature’s own, you may certainly count yourself blessed!
Now please, don’t misunderstand me. Spring is indeed a wonderful time. We have a great little garden going that should produce plenty of tomatoes and green beans and squash and zucchinis and peppers and… and… you get the picture. No, my gripe is with everything that was already sticking out of the dirt from last year.
Grasses, pines, oaks, hickories and most especially, our beloved weeds all contribute with a degree of enthusiasm worthy of a rising pubescent junior-high-schooler reading his very first National Geographic!
It’s worse at night. You lay in bed, gasping for oxygen but your lungs are so coated in that green/yellow/brown sticky goo that you just don’t stand a chance. In the morning, you shower, comb your hair, knock back a cup of coffee and then break out the Craftsman pliers to pry the boulders from your nose.
Of course, we do have what is otherwise a very efficient central air conditioning unit, double-paned storm windows with rubber seals and one of those home air ionizers that are supposed to clean your breathing material. And you know what? It probably works just dandy at keeping out things like diesel exhaust, marauding mosquitoes, cosmic rays, radioactive fallout and toxic acidic waste. But the pollen?
You might as well plant yourself in a greenhouse.
Oh, and let me do be very clear on one thing; I am not allergic to these substances. Not a bit. I don’t get sweaty, itchy eyeballs or loose my ability to speak. Nope, I just can’t breath well enough to take my frustrations… and my hedge shears out on everything poking its happy-self from the soil.
In fact, there is only one place where a brief respite is to be found and that, believe it or not, is at the local Walmart store.
Yeah, I can see that look on your face and no; Wally ain’t paying me to say this.
It is, as a matter of fact, my theory that because the big box mart is generally packed with so many people well ahead of my arrival, the air has already been thoroughly sifted by a kajillion other noses. All that’s left is that refreshing smell of... um, day old soiled diapers, dirty sneakers and unwashed hair.
Ah, springtime in the great Southland! The kids are screaming, the store associates are ignoring, the security personnel are chasing... and I can breathe!
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Redoubt can be found HERE