Sixty-Two Pricks

No, it's not Penis Week yet, people. Settle down. This is about the pricks that got my back. Sixty-two of 'em. They go by names like Timothy, Hackberry, Juniper, Alternaria, Bermuda, Ragweed, Cocklebur, Candida, and Johnson. I feel so used.

Why did I allow myself to be pricked so many times in one afternoon? Well, to find out just what's making your eyes drip like Niagara and your nasal passages close up like Tiger's wife's knees, you gotta have pricks. (Even though that analogy was tacky, I think Mrs. Woods would agree with me cuz she got the biggest prick of all.) So . . . yeah, sharp, painful pricks to the delicate skin of your very sensitive back, laced with pure itch factor.

No, this is not me.

For each prick, the degree to which the pricked site swells is the degree to which you are allergic and therefore need antihistamines. If the pricked site doesn't show a clear result (by which I mean, if that spot doesn't welt up, glow like a siren, and make you as the prickEE want to claw the eyes out of your prickER), the fun is amped up even more. Nursilla, who is probably a nice person outside of her prick-happiness, injects a more concentrated form of the itch factor into your unsuspecting upper arm. In mine, I got 21, bringing my grand prick total to 83. More pricks than one woman can stand, I assure you. Results are immediate, and once again, I am allergic to everything. Most notably, pricks.

As an aside, this experience has left me twitching and flinching whenever someone invades my personal space from behind. I am not currently accepting any more pricks.

They say if you move to Austin without any allergies, you will acquire them faster than you can say "Ah-choo!" I've been here since '93, so I didn't need a bunch of pricks to tell me I had allergies, but at least now all my pricks have names and I can use protection whenever they come to town.

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