As i sneezed my eleventh consecutive sneeze on the 57 bus this morning, i wondered why i am so intent on suffering this allergic martyrdom.
Yes, there are a scant nine pills left in the same little orange bottle i’ve been refilling with allergy medication since 2000. One is a renegade percocet still in hiding after my tonsillectomy, so in actuality there are only four days of relief to be found beneath the cap, inscribed “push down and turn.”
Why there are only eight pills is the question. I have medical insurance, as i work for a company which excels at selling medical insurance. I have a long, well-documented history at sneezing at just about anything than can be found in the outside world. So, why no refill this year?
No refill because i haven’t actually used the medical insurance, which is costing me plenty per year to have its plastic calling card simply fill space in my wallet. I brought myself to go to the dentist, but the doctor… something just doesn’t sit right about it. Nothing’s wrong with me, other than the sneezing. But every attempted appointment, whether canceled by me or the mysterious “them” of every general practice i’ve tried calling, always has my the specter of my mother’s control looming over it – how she would have me go to a doctor only after she had seen him for something herself, and how she would come right into the room with me – right into the damn paper-gown room, because she was a nurse and it was all clinical and she needed to know what was going on.
Well, in my intense desire to not let her know what’s going on i have developed an altogether aversion to the doctors, any doctors, even doctors she has never met. And so in my futile quarter-life attempt to take back the meager amount of privacy and control i’ve never had until now, i’ve just doomed myself to sneezy commutes and snuffly workgroup meetings.
Ah, the price of independence, perceived and actual.
Mom would never let me go a day without allergy medication.