shame is so in this season

i'm allergic to your face

(to preface this, i don't commonly eavesdrop. it's just that my desk is in a high traffic corner of the department and between the loitering drones and the jabbering hens, i can't seem to get a quiet moment)

so today i overhear some people talking about allergies... cats, dust, grass, perfume... basically everything in the world. one particular woman was saying how people should be considerate of those with these allergies and not wear perfume or hairspray to work or not open windows in the spring or not put cat hair in other people's coffee (ok she didn't really say the last one, but it's just as ridiculous). she said how there are these essential oils that we can get from kiehl's that don't have any chemical additives and therefore won't aggravate people with perfume allergies.

it reminded me of my italian cinema professor in college who was so deathly allergic to mint that if she caught anyone chewing gum, she would practically throw him or her out of her class with instructions not to come back until the mint residue has completely left their system. she was also the type of person who filled in regular moments of silence with "uhhh" and "ummm" - even if she wasn't actually thinking about anything - perhaps she was also allergic to quiet. but that's beside the point.

what i'm trying to say is that some people are really going overboard with imposing their allergies on everyone else. i'm allergic to pollen. should i go tell the flowers to stop having flower sex? for that matter, i'm allergic to smelly subway cars, hipsters and selfish people (a-ha, the irony!)

suckers.

posted by erica @ 4:13 PM