Every year around this time, most of us open up the windows to let the warm air circulate throughout the house and get rid of the dank smell of winter that has been festering like a chunk of limburger cheese left on top of a furnace.
Not my brother-in-law. When April comes, he shutters the windows and turns on the air conditioning. His house remains sealed from the outside world through most of the year, and it’s like he becomes a very large bubble boy. He does this not because he’s an eccentric recluse, like J.D. Salinger or the Herman’s Hermits, but because he has allergies.
I never could understand this. When I was a kid, I could lay in a bed of poison ivy as if it were a Serta. I wasn’t allergic to anything except homework, blood sausage, chores, discipline in general, weekday morning Mass and “Knots Landing.”
I was the opposite of my mother, who was allergic to just about everything. Although I am fairly certain she had allergies that were confirmed by licensed physicians, such as codeine, I had a hard time believing she was allergic to mustard. Or ketchup. Mayonnaise was okay. Milk was not.
Unless it was buttermilk.
But she absolutely insisted she was allergic to these types of things. If you placed a fish fillet in front of her for dinner, you might as well put her in a pine box. I never saw her eat a shrimp because she insisted she was allergic not only to shellfish but to all things that swim, have fins or live in the ocean.
I think I remember seeing her sip the foam off a beer once or twice in my life because she insisted she was allergic to alcohol. But she absolutely loved rubbing alcohol. To her, that was a cure-all. It would help anything from cleaning a scraped knee to growing back a severed limb.
I was deathly afraid of rubbing alcohol, and she kept it in the house by the gallon.
Anytime I had a boo-boo, she would grab me and douse it in alcohol, creating a searing pain way more intense than the original injury.
And now it’s apparent I’ve inherited some of my mom’s allergy genes. It’s all caught up with me. As I get older, things that didn’t bother me before are now problems. Suddenly pollen to me is my mom’s mustard and ketchup.
The other day I had a sneeze and congestion attack that was so bad the only thing I could do was take one of those pills. Sure it took away the problems, but it left me feeling like an Irishman at the end of a St. Patrick’s Day celebration. I was so woozy even Reece Witherspoon would notice. My words were so mumbled I couldn’t pass a Gary Busey speech class.
Suddenly I’m exchanging stories with other allergy sufferers.
The air is filled with toxic pollen just waiting to cause havoc.
Now I’m beginning to see my brother-in-law’s logic. Maybe I need to start keeping the house sealed.
I suppose I could live comfortably like a bubble boy as long as I had certain amenities.
But if I discover that, like my mom, I’m allergic to booze, then you might as well put me in a pine box.
Ray Kisonas may be contacted at 240-5778 or rayk@monroenews. com.