Category Archives: Allergies

Big Hair and Histamines

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Big Hair and Histamines

“These Kleenex are too flagrant, they always make me sneeze,” she said as she added yet another wadded puff to the pile in the trash can beside her bed. “Why in the world would they add perfume to something people with allergies blow their noses into?”

“Yes, it’s a fragrant abuse of medical logic,” I said, but she didn’t get the joke. She was too miserable and so I just let her malapropism slide by as I had so many times in our long friendship.

The air in this season of new growth was full of pollen. We indulged our roommate by keeping the windows of our college quad closed at all times and we had long ago relegated all our perfume to bottom drawers or trash cans. In those long-ago days of “big hair” when there was no such thing as unscented anything, we took the calculated risk of using hair spray, but only by climbing out onto the fire escape, pulling the window shut behind us and waiting a good five minutes before entering the room again. And this only if our allergy-prone friend was not in the room.

Occasionally, she caught a whiff of us as we passed in the game room or dining room, but she didn’t mention it. We knew that look, though. Only vanity won out over our need not to irritate the nasal fibers of our good friend. No one would miss our perfume, but in terms of hair, no girl dared to defy the norm. Bubbly, big, smooth and helmet-solid—that was the hair-fashion decree of the sixties.

Prompt words today are flagrant, indulged, quad, calculate and air.

Stink Think

 

Stink Think

Scotch broom makes me nauseous. Roses make me sneeze.
I abhor the scent of jasmine on an evening breeze.
Room deodorants should be banned, as should scented candles.
I’d rather smell my brother’s sneakers or a vagrant’s sandals.

Now that we want each thing to smell like something it is not,
there’s a different odor on everything we’ve got.
There’s perfume in detergent, in dryer tabs and soap.
Scented toilet paper makes we want to mope.

Unscented’s getting almost impossible to find.
It leaves allergic folks like me in a real tight bind.
Gardenia in my hand lotion or chamomile or peach.
Hairsprays  smell as fresh as air or like a summer beach.

Floor cleaners smell like forests of freshly gathered pine,
as though without this pungent scent our floors would smell like swine!
These odors leave me gasping and running for some air.
Their vapors make my eyes run, causing much despair.

I do not want my table waxed with lemon or “fresh scent.”
I believe that everything should smell as nature meant.
I’ve done a lot of research, and  I’m fairly sure
that perfumes out-stink everything they’re meant to obscure!

 

The prompt today was fragrance.  I found at least five old poems about fragrances and odors.  Here’s another one that goes waaaay back. Image of Scotch Broom from the internet.

An Ode to Dog Companions

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The Prompt: Literate for a Day—Someone or something you can’t communicate with through writing  can understand every single word you write today, for one day only. What do you tell them?

An Ode to Dog Companions

Darling little Frida, dearest Diego, too.
I have a little something I have to say to you.
If you’d like to go out walking every single day,
you have to start responding when I shout out, “Hey!”

That word means “Pay attention!” Its volume says “Right now!”
It doesn’t mean to take off after every passing cow
pulling me right after you, cause it is two to one,
and since my last foot surgery, I don’t much like to run!

Another little something I’d really like to tell
is that it was all your fault the last time that I fell.
When one of you runs toward the lake, the other towards the town,
your leashes wrap around me and the way I go is down!

Please don’t jump up on the screen whenever mealtime’s near.
I’ve had it mended more than once—a dozen times, I fear.
If you sit there quietly, your meal will be served fast.
I tell this to you each day, but my words don’t seem to last.

Another little something that needs badly to be said
is that it would be lovely if you’d shit behind the shed
instead of on the footpath or all over the grass,
for pooping over everything is really rather crass.

You don’t have to answer that dog across the street,
for he sets a barking record that you don’t have to beat.
The fighting cocks can crow without your high accompaniment.
(Albeit that your howls are growing quite magnificent.)

The hound of the Baskervilles was acting on a curse
and now that you have matched him, there’s no need to rehearse.
The owl will hoot hoot every night no matter what you do.
Ignore him, please. This is your mother begging it of you!

The dog food is for you dogs, and the cat food is for cats.
If you keep forgetting this, it’s going to drive me bats!
It does no good to try to knock cat dishes from the wall.
Those antics will not ever get you anywhere at all!

Diego, when I get home, please don’t drive Frida away!
You won’t believe there’s love enough, no matter what I say.
I have one hand for each of you, so let her have her share.
You are a dog and not a pig, so gluttony’s not fair.

Please don’t eat the cat bed and please don’t chase the cat.
Bullying’s not an answer. I will have none of that!
You found me on the street and did all that you could do
to make me bring you home with me to join my motley crew.

I am allergic to you dogs, and also to each cat,
although I know that you cannot be cognizant of that.
And so you want to sleep real near and have me stroke you often.
But when I do, it ends in itching, nose-blowing and coughin’.

Your species is a puzzle to which I don’t have a key.
Though it was at your insistence that I brought you home with me,
why is it every single time an open gate you see,
you’re through it, running down the street, so anxious to be free?

(for a similar prose answer to this prompt, go Here)

Popsicles and Tuberoses

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Popsicles and Tuberoses

A fresh whiff of jasmine on the evening breeze
sends me off in paroxysms—sneeze on sneeze on sneeze.
Lilacs give me headaches, tuberoses make me ill.
Whenever dates wear aftershave, I have to take a pill.

Pinesol makes me nauseous. I’d rather smell the dirt!
And please do not use fabric softener on my favorite shirt.
I can’t believe so many folks enjoy a scented candle,
for they’re another stinky thing I simply cannot handle.

When friends bring friends to visit me, they eschew scented lotions
and tell their friends to do the same, ‘cause I have these strange notions.
What I like to smell is dill, and soil soaked by rain.
The kind of things I like to smell I’m hard-pressed to explain.

Who likes the scent of curry or cabbage in the hall?
But I admit, I like them! They don’t bother me at all.
I love the smell of Popsicles—my favorite is cherry.
It’s floral scents that I abhor, so weddings make me wary.

I hug the bride and kiss the groom, contribute to her trousseau.
But I must always hold my nose and hurry as I do so.
Orange blossoms are the worst, along with the carnation.
Even roses, I admit, are an abomination!

I really do like flowers, but only how they look.
My favorite kinds of odors are kinds that you can cook!
Chocolate cake or pudding and hot dogs on the grill
are smells that inspire ecstasy—that certain little thrill.

Vanilla poured in pudding, bananas mashed for bread—
swirl around my nostrils and end up in my head.
Such romantic odors. What stories they do tell
of culinary orgasms and itchings they will quell.

So if you want to pleasure me, please, for heaven’s sake,
leave the flowers at the shop and simply bring me cake!

Daily Prompt: Nosey Delights—From the yeasty warmth of freshly baked bread to the clean, summery haze of lavender flowers, we all have favorite smells we find particularly comforting. What’s yours?

(For the end to this story, go to: https://grieflessons.wordpress.com/2014/08/15/you-dont-send-me-flowers-anymore/