On Hayfever

Summer is definitely coming. The sun is in the sky, the grass is green and growing. The trees are coming back to life, and there are flowers in the garden. People no longer have to wear three layers when they step outside, and people are starting to enjoy the common being there again, rather than treating it as a shortcut between their house and the station. And the final bit of proof that summer is coming? Those little bits of pollen - some faintly visible, most completely invisible - floating in the sky and heading toward their ultimate destination. Which seems to be right up my nose.

Yep, I'm a hayfever sufferer, so summer is a bit of a mixed blessing to me. Sure, the city ceases to resemble a Soviet era metropolis in the grip of a famine, but my nose, ears, eyes and throat are all casually ravaged by bits of floating plant spunk. And before anyone starts, hayfever is not a minor problem. Whenever you say you are suffering from hayfever, there is always someone who looks at you as if you have just said you've messed yourself. To them I say: you try living with your head and face being attacked each and every day; it isn't a fat lot of fun. If you don't have hayfever, let me take you through just how unpleasant it can be.

Every single one of your nasal hairs is itching painfully, like some malign imp has set fire to the tip of each and every one of them. You sniff a lot - you can't help it, but you do. It doesn't help. Your nose runs faster than a log flume, and whilst you hope against hope that it will stop, it doesn't. You end up resembling a Captain Trips victim on a really, really bad day. And then the sneezing starts.

These aren't normal sneezes. These are powerful sneezes. They have enough force to make you think that you are being propelled across the room. After each of this mega-sneezes, you feel you have just expelled a bit of your brain and several major arteries through your nose. If you could harness them, then you could probably use these sneezes to propel rockets.

It also attacks the eyes. Your eyes itch, and whilst you try as hard as you can not to scratch them, but of course that doesn't work. They just itch too much. Far, far too much. So you rub your eyes. And the rubbing becomes addictive, and you just cannot stop. Like masturbation, you can't stop until you get that release. Except the release just doesn't come, and you end up with red raw eyelids, watering eyes that still... that still... that still itch.

Your ears itch as well. Scratching doesn't help. But the itchy ears isn't as bad as the itch in the throat. Because, seriously, what can you do about an itchy throat? You can't scratch it with your fingers - even if they were long enough, you'd be at the risk of provoking your gag reflex and therefore adding a hearty chunder to your growing list of problems. Instead, you have to sit there, the back of your throat feeling like a bad case of athlete's foot. And there is nothing, nothing you can do about it.

Of course, your entire head being aflame and starting to resemble a large flea bite is an exhausting thing. So you want to sleep. Except you can't really sleep. Because you are still sneezing like a gas explosion. Plus your face feels like someone has been using sandpaper on it. So you lie in this sort of half-awake, half-sleeping stupor, wondering whether it is possible to die from hayfever, and if it isn't, why isn't it possible?

Sure, there are pills. And the right combination of pills can make you feel human again. But it does take a lot of hefty dose of medication to take the edge of the summer plague. And there is a cost too. Hayfever medication ain't cheap. Chemist Direct can really, really help (thank you, young Moai) but a trip to boots to get the drugs you need to get you through the day can easily relieve you of a tenner. And you can easily spend that a week, if you're not careful.

Hayfever is a pisser and a shitter rolled into one (a shisser, if you will) and anyone who says otherwise is a weapons-grade cock with all the empathy of Damian McBride talking about a smear website. And if it wasn't against Nu Labour's anti-hate laws, I'd strongly advise you to punch anyone who implies that hayfever isn't a grade-A nightmare right in their fat, stupid face.

Anyway, enjoy the summer.