Is that a used tissue or a white flag of surrender?
My allergies, which have not been too much of an issue the last few years, have decided to wage war on me. I am now a mucus dispensing, moist tissue creating, sneezing, snuffling, sniffing machine. Ed cooked chili. I couldn’t taste a thing. Harry Potter arrived. I can hardly see the words on the page. It’s that bad.
In fact, it’s so bad that I thought of using that ancient nasal torture
device: the Neti Pot. Supposedly, you pour warm, salty water in through one nostril and it drips out the other, carrying with it all the irritants and other gribblies making your sinuses so miserable. I have one that I acquired in a fit of “I will be a calm, healthy person. I will drink hot water and lemon upon awakening. I will breathe deeply instead of shouting at the children for dismembering the throw cushions. And so on.” Since then, it has lurked menacingly in a drawer, taunting me with my clearly overly optimistic urge to be a yogi. But things were that bad. I extracted the pot. Read the directions. Mixed the healthy salt into the unhealthy Philadelphia water. Inserted the pot gently into one nostril and…
And nothing. Nothing could get through the huge amount of pollen-induced mucus damming my nasal cavities. I am the Hoover Dam and no genteel little Neti pot stands a chance in allergy hell. So I’m back to hugging the tissue box and groaning.
I’ll make more chilli when you can taste it – I hoped it would clear things out a bit, but these allergies laugh in the face of a spices as much as warm saline. Anyone out there with helpful hints to allergy sufferers and/or their partners, please feel free to let us know…