American Man Blindsided by Spring Allergies in Germany

I have always suffered from hay fever. Every spring, between May and July, my allergies go nuts. And I’m from Portland, Oregon, mind you, which resides in the valley between the Cascade Mountain Range and the Pacific Coast Mountains like a breakfast bowl full of pollen spores.

Portlanders know all about seasonal allergies. My friend Looney Tunes moved to Portland just a few years ago and said, “I thought I was going to die.” That’s how hard our pollen count schooled him. It took him to school and fed him crackers.

My other friend, who I will call “Midnight in Wyoming,” moved to Portland and said of his resulting allergy attacks, “I wanted to shoot myself in the head.” (I’m not sure we can take this seriously, however, coming from a man who dances the Electric Slide.)

As a native Oregonian, I’m accustomed to allergy attacks. They are an annual norm for me, but I thought things might be different in Germany. Perhaps the trees will be different there, I thought. Maybe the flowers and grasses will make a kinder, gentler brand of pollen. Oh no, they have the same shit over here, and it’s working me over like it hates me. Like I slept with its mother… Ivanna Sneezeonyourwiener.

Holy mother of Joseph, I wake up feeling like hell every morning; my eyelids fused together with tears and eyeball honey. My throat is so itchy I feel like I swallowed a blond-haired, blue-eyed hairball. I sneeze like 15 times before my Earl Grey is done steeping (and yes, I put milk in it like a total fruitcake. Whatever man. I’m 1/4 English).

What in the hell, Germany. Clearly you do not respect my generic, Costco-purchased Claritin. I brought this shit all the way from the States, where we don’t have to talk to a pharmacist to buy a bottle of NyQuil. Where we enjoy so much freedom we can buy DayQuil and NyQuil and take them both at the same time.

Anybody else gettin’ nailed by allergies right now? What’s a red-blooded American supposed to do against pollen spores the size of soccer balls? Why am I mixing metaphors like an inebriated Irishman? Oh, hello beer stein full of sweet, golden Pilsner — why yes, you are just the medicine I was looking for.

And now, Dear Reader, I would like to invite you to watch this video I made. It’s a rapid-fire compilation of my sneezes over the past week. I only managed to record about half of them, since sneeze attacks come on super fast and my iPhone takes forever to switch into video mode, but here they are, in all their eye-watering, head-pounding, snot-rocketing glory. (Warning: video contains minor swearing.)

Click here to learn more about the term “Culture Shock.”

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