Ith Allergeeths

I don't know where it came from or how I got it, but yesterday, at exactly 3:14 p.m. I felt a gentle wave course through my senses, and the next thing I knew, I was sniffling. All the way up to 3:13 I felt great, and in fact had been secretly gloating about how I had made it through most of the "season of sickness" unscathed, but by 3:14, I knew something was changing.

How, you might ask, did this wave overcome my carefully devised defenses? I don't touch doorknobs. I never touch my face or nose (particularly hard to do when you have facial hair that needs stroking from time to time). I wash immediately after shaking hands, walk around anywhere I hear a sneeze and even move in the theatre if I inadvertently sit behind someone obviously afflicted with post nasal drip.

I can only think of the person sitting in front of me at the Severensen concert this weekend who turned and said, "ith allergeeths." While I now, seriously questions her veracity, at the time I didn't want to appear rude and I didn't want to give up my second row seat, so I broke one of my cardinal rules and remained. There you have it!

Anyway, as a result, by 3:14 on the third day (it always takes three days, doesn't it) I felt the wave, and by 3:15, I immediately began mega dosing vitamin C (I have the chewable kind that taste like Sweet Tarts; remember them?), 1000 mg at a pop, every thirty minutes to an hour. I even delayed a visit to the gym for my evening workout hoping my fastidiousness would out run the wave, or prove it was, indeed, just "allergeeths."

It didn't help that I had an appointment out of town early today, and that there are essentially no alarm clocks in the house (everyone relies on their cell phone). I tried to set my phone alarm and found out that doing so involves no less than seventy-three steps. And, if you goof up on any one of the steps, you have to start over. Three of the steps actually require you to speak with someone in Bangladesh (no offense intended)(whereupon you say, "none taken"). As a result, out of concern that I would sleep past my wake up time, I fiddled with the phone late into the night and set and reset it over and over to test the alarm and to be sure I had selected the loudest version of "8 Bars Blues." When I finally fell asleep, I woke up every hour on the hour to check the time. ARRRGG. The alarm thing did work, however. I leapt up by the third bar to keep it from rousing the others in the house, and in plenty of time to get to my appointment. Unfortunately with the three hours of sleep and oncoming sinus pressure, I felt like something the cat dragged in (you know, kind of chewed up and spit out).

So, here I sit, fully convinced that the mega dosing did help and the lack of sleep didn't, slowly admitting that I have some kind of a cold. Presently, I am considering it the 24 hour kind. We'll see.

I'm headed to the steam room to sweat it out!