Dust Allergy

How weird is it to wear a surgical mask?  Not all the time mind you, just when I am cleaning the house, sticking my head behind the refrigerator, or playing with my grandkids on the floor.  All it takes as I'm doing these things is one normal breath to suck in the dust and I can feel it hit the back of my throat.  The instant that I feel it I know that there is nothing I can do to avoid a week of misery.  In exactly 24 hours I will begin to experience severe cold symptoms that will need to run their course.

 

I do this to myself at least once a year because I never remember to keep some surgical masks around.  Last Sunday I was at my daughter-in-law's house playing on the floor with my grand kids and inhaled some dust.  Today, Friday, 6 days later, I am at last beginning to feel almost human as the sneezing, runny nose and coughing has finally worn down.

 

I will attempt to make up for my first mistake by going to Wal-Mart today and purchasing a gross of surgical masks.  I am still debating how to deal with the aftermath of my second mistake which was blabbing to my daughter-in-law that in the future I would wear a mask when I played on the floor with her kids.  The next thing I know is they've hired a cleaning lady.  You can see where this is headed.  "It's too bad we had to wipe out the college fund because of Grandpa's schnoz, but both kids have really taken to manual labor."

 

I have often groaned about the front steps but they never installed an elevator.  Why the over-reaction to the dust allergy?  Does she think the kids will suffer psychological damage because Grandpa looks like Hannibal Lecter?  I'll have plenty of masks so we can all wear masks.  The kids and I can go to the Southwest Museum, see how the Apaches applied war paint, and then we can create our own tribal designs.

 

The internet says a dust allergy is usually a reaction to dust "mites" that are microscopic in size.  Unless the cleaning lady works for NASA she'll never be able to see them let alone get rid of them. 

 

This also means that I can no longer feel free to express myself for fear of another knee-jerk, over-the-top reaction.  I earlier wrote a piece that was critical of giving away the family dog.  If Maria and Michael ever have good reason at some point to give their dog, Ginger, to another family, they'll likely to arrange for a bogus kidnapping.  Of course now that this has been brought out into the open, if Ginger ever supposedly passes away I'm going to insist on a death certificate.