Well, we've reached that blessed time of year, the time of Mother Nature's annual hazing ritual, in which I have difficulty concentrating on even the most mundane things due to constant sneezing. Yes, I have allergies. Nasty ones. Ever since my freshman year in college, they have acted up from late August through early October, and during that period I am like a little bird feathering its nest with Kleenex. There must be a box in every room, and there is always a trash can nearby that is virtually overflowing with the unsightly origami of used tissues. The same is true of my handbag and the pockets of my jeans. Let me tell you, when allergy season rolls around, I am a pretty, pretty girl. Also, my sneezes are of such a volume and timbre that they sound more like coughs, so it probably seems to everyone around me that I have consumption. At times I worry that my violent sneezes have somehow damaged my organs. They practically register on the Richter scale, after all. Perhaps these olfactory seizures have shaken loose some grey matter, causing my brain tissue to leak out, little by little. Could it be that I have lost some critical brain functions or memories? Maybe I went sky-diving one time, and I just don't remember it. Or maybe I have lost my ability to whistle. Nah, I'm fairly certain I couldn't do that to begin with. All I can say with any certainty is that I don't feel like I have forgotten anything. And did I mention that my eyes are itchy? As I discovered last winter, I'm ridiculously allergic to angora, so now whenever my eyes get senstive and teary, I can't help but picture an invisible man dangling an invisible rabbit in front of my eyes. A rabbit with fangs.

You're laughing at me, I can tell. You're saying, "Take a pill, for God's sake." Well, the thing is, I do. I take 24-hour Claritin every day. I used to take Claritin-D, the one with pseudoephedrine, and although it knocked the crap out of my allergies, it also left me feeling dysphoric in a way I usually associate with 19th-century opium dens. I would go into trances. I would watch episodes of "The Nanny" for hours on end. It was bad, bad mojo. So I dropped the D and kept the Claritin, which takes the edge off my symptoms but still leaves plenty for me to enjoy. The mucus. The madness. Good times.

I find that if I stay inside, the symptoms are relatively minor. But if I go outside? May God have mercy on my soul. The thing about Kansas is that the pollen count is higher than most other places in the country. Lucky me, huh? I'm willing to accept this state of affairs, though, because of the countless other benefits I garner living in this fantastic state. For one, we've got absurd extremes of weather, much of which entails soul-crushing humidity. For scenery, we've got drab plains stretching off in every direction. We've got intellectuals like Fred Phelps and his band of righteous thugs. And we've got a state school board obsessing about that pesky evolution theory, instead of acknowledging the primacy of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I mean, if we didn't have something bad here—namely, a pollen count that often slides right off the scales—it just wouldn't be fair to those poor schmucks in California. Like anyone wants to live near the ocean, anyway.

And speaking of the scales, let me take a moment to educate you about allergies. The four families of allergens are these: pollen inhaled while driving to the grocery store; pollen inhaled while camping; pollen from zombies; and pollen encountered while performing an exorcism. These can all be reduced to a single category: pollen encountered while living. (Pollen encountered while dead isn't really much of a hassle.) Now, you may ask, how is it measured? Well you see, every day, all across the country, scientists are standing on street corners with specialized instruments that measure the pollen count. They will then transmit the results to headquarters through the microphone embedded in one of their dental fillings. It's all very slick and high-tech. Frequently, these experts disguise themselves as prostitutes in order to blend in with their environment. In fact, most of the "prostitutes" you see on street corners in particular areas of the city are probably scientists taking pollen measurements. Ask one sometime. You'll see I'm right.

The bottom line is this: allergies annoy me a lot. I'm sniffling and sneezing as I type this. Oh, and let me mention one more thing that annoys me, since we're on the topic. I hate it when people steal a new corduroy jacket out of your car (this just happened to me yesterday). I mean, what is that? Nothing else, just the jacket. It's not as if it was bitterly cold, either. The temperature yesterday was close to 93 degrees, so I know the person who took it wasn't desperate. What I really want to do is buy another one and coat it with poison, just like in that Euripides play, Medea, and leave it in my unlocked car for my thief to find. When the miscreant puts it on, he'll basically be burned alive by the poison. Does this seem excessively violent to you? Don't worry. It's probably just the Claritin talking.

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