Feeling Sorry For Myself
The Trees Are Jizzing on Me and I Can’t Breathe!
Seasonal wheezes from the Pacific Northwest
I have allergies.
Actually, that’s not capturing the full extent of it. It’s like saying, “Cats have fur.” And yes, I am allergic to cats.
Yesterday the sun was shining, so I sat outside on the deck to write. Wearing an N95 mask. Because I had shit to do later in the day, and my snowflake antihistamines are easily triggered. A few hours of fresh spring air, and for the rest of the day I can pass for a zombie — other than being too tired to say “brains” with undead-appropriate zeal.
Years ago, I went to see an allergist for a “scratch test,” which despite the name did not involve cats. Basically, they poke little holes in you and place a drop of some substance on each one. Your level of allergy to each is measured by whether and how much it swells up.
In my case, the nurse wiped off one sample halfway through because it was becoming too inflamed, plus several more because they’d already reached the maximum category. The main offenders were trees and grasses.
Which is a problem. Here is the view from our deck.
To give you an idea of how green it is up here, we don’t live in a rural area. There are several houses in that picture, X-ray vision required.
After some whinging on Facebook, a friend sent me a link to a new plant-based conspiracy. I’m trying to figure out a QAnon-esque foliage joke, but I think the mask must not have fit properly because I need a nap. Maybe tomorrow.
The article was titled The Complicated Truth Behind “Botanical Sexism.” It addressed the idea that landscapers install more male trees than female. They’re easier to maintain because they produce pollen rather than fruit.
For the vegetatively uninformed, pollen is plant sperm. Some species reproduce by targeted pollination via birds and bees. The problem is others merely scatter it heedlessly far and wide. Plants that use this strategy are called “wind pollinators.” Humans who do are called “men.”
The upshot is every time you go outside, your local slut-boy trees are giving you a botanical porn facial.
Most of ours are evergreens, which I didn’t used to associate with pollen. It turns out they produce tons of the stuff.
This makes me itchy just looking at it. The worst bit is the yard service company’s phone number has a 425 area code. Ours does too.
In spring, the veggie golden shower falls from the sky like a fine mist. When working outside, I keep a little brush handy to periodically clear off the screen and keyboard. The powder can really pile up on anything left out for more than a day or two. Literally pile up, like little allergen snowdrifts, that then turn into a charming slurry when it rains.
Our cars are supposedly red and blue, but we work from home and rarely drive, so at the moment they’re both Tree Semen Yellow.
Scientists being who they are, of course, opposing viewpoints abound. This habit is your primary evidence in favor of global warming — the idea they could manage a massive conspiracy and coverup is absurd. They just aren’t wired that way.
I, on the other hand, am wired like a teenage boy. My takeaway is that trees are apparently getting all kinds of freak on right out in public.
“There are no ‘male vs. female trees’ for most species. It is impossible to plant only male trees,” (crop scientist Sarah Taber) writes. This is true; while some trees are dioecious, meaning there are distinct male and female individuals, the vast majority are not. A forester at the University of Georgia School of Forestry estimated that globally, only about 5 percent of trees are dioecious; the rest are monoecious, cosexual, or polygamous, meaning a single tree can have both male and female reproductive organs.
Clearly, botanists are way more fun at parties than I’d thought. How about this title? Dioecious plants are more precocious than cosexual plants: A comparative study of relative sizes at the onset of sexual reproduction in woody species. Do I even have to mention that one of the dioecious species is the Hardy Rubber Tree?
Somewhere a pastor is feeling a little bit woody right now and angry about it.
Shame on you, National Institutes of Health! Why are my tax dollars being used to study precocious sex in rubber trees? It sounds like ungodly smut! Who is looking out for the children?
That leads to an idea for funding my allergy medications — botany journal erotic fan fiction. It might be niche, but some of those unexpectedly racy science types might go for some well-written stamens and pistils and her delicate flowers opening to accept his massive pollen load.
But maybe not in the eyes and nose. That’s rude.
John Werth is a Medium Top Writer in Humor and Politics, who describes his writing style as “You’d read this if I were famous.” He finds writing more tiring than exercise, so he compensates by not exercising.
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MuddyUm brand art by David Todd McCarty