Sing it with me now …
It’s the most, horrible time of the year!
With co-workers all sneezing,
And everyone wheezing, “My eyesight’s not clear!”
It’s the most, horrible time of the year!It’s the crap-crapiest season of all,
With prescription refillings and insurance billings,
Oh, how I wish it were fall!
It’s the crap-crapiest season of all!*
I’d come up with more verses, but all of this particulate matter in my skull is impinging on my ability to form cogent sentences, much less complete a rhyme scheme. Because it’s pollen time in Georgia, and most everywhere else that matters. Just the other day, I was walking out to my car and wondering just when we’d start to see that yellow precipitation that serves as our own kind of warmer weather snow. Less than a week later, here it is. It’s on the sidewalk. It’s on street. It’s on our cars. And it is in our lungs and throat.
Or is it?
What we see might not be what we get. All of that yellow is brought to us courtesy of amorous pine trees pitching the woo indiscriminately to other pine trees. And while this very public display of affection might seem a bit overt for our human sensibilities, none of this conifer-flung love dust is contributing to our lack of respiratory health. According to the crack reporters at Rome’s News-Tribune:
While pine pollen is the most visible, it is not usually a major contributor to allergy problems because the spores are larger and heavier than most pollens and don’t stay airborne as long.
Even so, the enemy I can see is the enemy I am more inclined to blame. And while pine pollen might not be the exact reason for my misery, it’ll be a cold day in Hell** before I buy in to the idea that pine pollen might be actually good for me.
* Apologies to Andy Williams.
** The Ninth Circle thereof excepted.
