Allergies suck, especially the ones that have VERY obvious reactions.
It’s spring and guess who’s allergic to the air? Right, me! My eyelids feel like sandpaper on my red eyeballs which are having more than the usual trouble seeing because they’re watering constantly. And every morning I wake up to them glued shut so I struggle to get to the bathroom to clean them out without crashing into the door or door frame; some days I make it there safely and not so much on others. Nice way to start the day hey? Crashing into something very hard with either your toe or your head.
Then there’s the sneezing, the non-stop nose-blowing and the dry throat that gives way to a lot of throat-clearing and coughing. Before the pandemic you could be excused with your “it’s just allergies” disclaimer but we aren’t off the hook so easy any more. I sneezed in the grocery store the other day and you’d think I’d stabbed someone the way everyone spun to stare in complete horror. I swear, I DON’T HAVE COVID folks, it’s just allergies. Add all this attractiveness up and toss in a bit of limp and a bruise on my right cheekbone (from the getting-to-the-bathroom-with-goopy-eyes-fails) and I’m ready to sign up for the pageants. There is, unfortunately, and very obviously, many things wrong with me at the moment lol.
In my book I talk about “bullshit allergies”. People who are not really allergic at all, they just don’t want to eat certain things and so to save themselves ridicule and embarassment for just being a wuss they tell you they’re allergic because they think you’re going to leave it there. What I don’t talk about in the book was that if it sounded like bullshit I rarely left it there and usually exposed their nonsense before they left my B&B. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I secretly fed peanuts to an anaphylactic but when someone told me in the booking email that they love all the usual breakfast meats but then she pushes away her breakfast plate telling you that she’s allergic to ground meat (sausages!) it’s kind of hard (for me) to react like an adult. This same couple went out for burgers on the first night of their stay. Yup, I could not resist innocently asking her how she had managed to eat that burger the other night and she immediately turned bright red. I didn’t care because they were checking out and leaving and I was sick of all their surprise-food-issues with every breakfast I made for them during their stay.
So here’s the thing that drove me nuts then and still does: if you don’t like something , for the sake of simply making life smoother, why not just be honest? Did they think they were doing me some favor by withholding information that directly impacted the service and products they were paying for and would receive? Were they just trying to be low-maintenance for a nano-second? Was it some kind of test of me? Were they just total idiots? Were they masochists and hoping for a beating? My B&B was literally in the middle of nowhere and groceries were a real challenge (our local grocery stores were horrible; I can’t even count how many times I’d go to get fresh essentials like milk and eggs – and they’d be out of stock). EVERY guest was asked about allergies and aversions and I have to say that it’s an incredibly slim number of ALL of my guests that were honest about their food-dramas; there was almost always a surprise for me lurking in the mix. My menus were planned WAY in advance and many items were frozen to ensure I had availability. Nobody ever knew what a struggle it was to feed the ungrateful public and how inconsiderately they would respond to the really awesome food they were provided with. Yes, I took it personally, how the heck else would I take it?
So here’s my proposed challenge to all…. the next time someone asks you about allergies just be honest. If you’re allergic to something, absolutely say it. But also, if you just don’t like something, just say that too! Consider your host for that one nano-second and understand that it’s perfectly acceptable to dislike something and it’s way more acceptable than lying, making the host feel crappy for making you something you wouldn’t want to eat, then being caught in your lie, then looking like a jerk in front of everyone in the room and then reading about yourself in somebody’s book down the road lol.
I’m done, that’s all for today and time for this girl to go find a nice big glass of vino!
As always, thank you for stopping by and always feel welcome to drop me a comment or suggestion for a blog topic if you have one!
S.