Feeling: prickly
Listening to: Paradigm - Sooner the Better
Reading/Watching: --

They don't tell you this, but an allergy test is basically being a pincushion for a day.

Two "control" pins, eight sets of little pricker-thingies, each with eight prongs dipped in a different allergen, and nine tiny sharp needles per prong, for a whopping total of 2 + 9 x 8 x 8 = 578 needles being systematically poked, then really jabbed into your arms to make sure they get the job done.

So glad that Texas has so many different types of flora and fauna for which to test me.

Then you get to sit in a dentist-type chair for twenty minutes and wait, poked arms outstretched like a statue of Jesus, looking like you'd really just love to hug the world. Your arms will begin to itch like a sonofabitch, at first because they've been jabbed with needles, then because your skin is reacting to the crap you're allergic to, and finally because you are thinking so hard about how you can't scratch because it will screw up the test.

And now I have lovely rows of very evenly spaced track marks, like a heroin addict with OCD. But it is now medically proven that I am allergic to cats (duh), cedar (which I sorta knew), and... DUST. The side of my arm that had the prongs related to dust and household molds just lit up like a Christmas tree.

The good news? I can take medication that doesn't involve more needles. The bad news? Now I have to start cleaning my house. Regularly. Especially if I want to burn candles, i.e. all the damn time.

But at least I'm not allergic to Allegra, because that would make me sad.

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