If you do this, I hate you

I can't stand people who make their children's happiness my responsibility. When this happens I usually just get a nasty look after I've told their little angel that they can't pet my dog, but there was one mother whom I met last May who was rude enough that I've decided to post about her.
Poodleface and I were walking through what passes for downtown in a place as small as this. We were on our way to the bookstore and were almost there when a mother down the street started excitedly telling her daughter to look at the dog. I feel a little strange whenever parents do that, but whatever. It's no big deal.
I went into the bookstore and started reading the back cover of a book on the front table, but before I'd read more than the first sentence the door opened and the mother came through leading her daughter by the hand and talking happily to her about going to see the dog. I shook my head at her and moved farther down the table, but she still came over to me and asked me brightly if her daughter could pet my dog. "No," I said, a bit weirded out that she'd followed me into the store. She stared at me like I'd done something shocking, and I put the book down and headed for the back of the store because I really hate having to justify the no petting rule to sulking mothers.
I noticed a book on the bottom shelf that looked interesting so I sat on the floor and started looking through it.  I'd been there a few minutes when I heard someone clear their throat above me and I looked up to see that the same mother had once again followed me, and she did not look happy. I started to stand up but she held up her hands and told me to stop; she didn't want me to run away again. I'd actually just wanted to be on the same level as her, but whatever. I stayed on the ground and waited as she told me how I'd made her daughter cry with my rudeness and how disappointed she was that I wasn't even willing to speak to a small child.
I waited until she was done, then got to my feet and told her that I wasn't very happy either; I didn't like being treated like a museum exhibit and if I didn't want to talk to her daughter I didn't have to.
She looked at me like she couldn't believe there were people like me in the world, then said huffily, "Well, I guess we both learned something today. And now my daughter knows not to touch strange dogs." She stormed off and I stood there wishing I wasn't a teenager so she might have taken me a little more seriously.

What's wrong with me? I mean, besides the whole peanut thing...

I really hated myself for a while.
Whenever I mentioned my allergies at school people would groan and roll their eyes and ask me if I could please just drop it, just stop, why did I keep doing this? Whenever I got up and left a classroom the teacher would ask me if it was really necessary and the whole class would start whispering about me. Not to mention the death threats and the teasing and the way people liked to shout "PEANUT!" as I passed in the hallway.
There was this one day, about three weeks before I left school, that made me so mad I literally did see red. Poodleface and I were going to lunch along with a third of the school. Everyone, myself included, was wearing a really heavy backpack because the school issued us laptops, and backpacks to go with those laptops, and we were required to use them so that the laptops would stay protected. But the bottom of the bag was reinforced and wouldn't bend and was too big to fit in a locker, so we had to carry them everywhere for the whole day. There was also a rule that said that we couldn't take them into the cafeteria, so we tossed them in a pile at the door, which pissed the teachers off but it wasn't like we had a choice. At the beginning of the year someone had figured out that if you grabbed the handle of someone's backpack and gave it a light tug it would overbalance them and they would fall over. When I first felt my center of gravity shift dramatically backwards that's what I thought was happening, but the boy who'd yanked my bag caught me before I fell. So there I was, in his arms, unable to see who it was because he was behind me, wondering what the hell he was doing and why he was holding me so gently. We stood like that for a few seconds, and then he leaned forward and whispered in my ear, "peanut." Then he set me back on my feet and when I turned around he was gone, thus completing the most intimate insult I have ever gotten.
What really pissed me off is that no other boy had ever held me like that. Other girls who share my social standing get sexually harassed, but all anyone ever shouted at me was "peanut." I wasn't even a girl anymore, they hated me so much.
They hated me for being allergic to peanuts, and they acted like I was doing it deliberately and they wished I'd just stop.
So why didn't I stop? Why didn't I just stop it? I wanted to stop, I really did. I wanted to cry and lay  on the ground and say I was sorry, I was really sorry, I hadn't meant to do it, it just happened, I couldn't stop it, I was so, so sorry and I understood that they hated me and wanted to hurt me, I hated myself too.
I left school because my only other alternative was to start harming myself.

There ought to be a manual

If you or someone you know has a food allergy, that's okay. There are about a hundred sites that'll tell you what to do. They'll give you recipes and activities and ideas that'll work for everyone, and they'll explain in detail exactly why all of that is necessary.
If you or someone you know has a service dog, that's a bit problematic. There aren't any rules for that.

Okay, so there are a lot of different kinds of service dog and a lot of different kinds of training and no two dogs are alike, but surely we all have some things in common? Like small children. We should be told how to keep a small child from touching our service dog. Or, there could be a chapter on restaurants. Restaurants are fraught with peril for service dog owners. Table or booth, which has more room for a dog? Do you let your dog eat the food on the floor or does that look unprofessional? Should you wait in an awkward silence while the waitstaff coos over your dog or is it okay to ask them to knock it off and pay attention to their customer? What if someone at a table near you starts complaining about unsanitary dogs? Do you ignore them or defend yourself? And what if there's a hyperactive child?
Or, there could be a list of tactics for diffusing a situation where someone won't let you in because they don't know about service dog laws. That's always a horrible situation and I'd love some tips on how to get through it.
There could be a chapter on traveling! It could give advice about flying with a service dog, and about hotels, and playing tourist. It could help you plan for your dog's needs, like how to get dog food through airport security or keeping your dog calm on a long bus ride.
Seriously, why isn't there a manual? I know I could have used one. For about a month after I got Poodleface I was playing it by ear and desperately trying to remember the few days of instruction I'd had from his trainer. A manual would have been a wonderful lifeline.

I'm dreaming of a white poodle

As previously mentioned, I pretty much live in the middle of nowhere and so have only crossed paths with three other people who have service dogs. One man I passed on the sidewalk. From the design of his dog's harness I guessed that he was blind, and because I was too shy to say anything to him (and, really, what would I say? "Hi there, I've also got a service dog! We should be friends!"?) he probably doesn't know I exist.
The second woman I met outside my friend's apartment when her dog ran up to me and began to bark at Poodleface before I could get inside. She caught the dog and clipped it back onto her leash and told me she was  sorry, her dog is usually a lot better behaved and it's actually a registered seizure alert dog but it knows it's not on duty now. I pointed out Poodleface's jacket and we had about a minute of service dog-related conversation before I had to go up and meet my friend. Since then I've seen her from a distance going into a store my father and I were driving past, but we haven't had another chance to talk.
The third woman I met in the candy aisle of WalGreens, and she and her psychotic dog nearly got Poodleface and I thrown out of the store. I was sitting on the floor, minding my own business and reading the ingredients list of a new kind of candy I wanted to try, when I heard growling. I looked up and saw that Poodleface was shifting from foot to foot, looking uncertain but remaining polite as a brown dog in a bright orange vest growled nastily at him. On the other end of the leash was an older woman in a flowery dress, who strangely didn't seem to care that her dog was opening both of us to possible legal action. The general public doesn't actually like it when service dogs threaten to brawl in aisle five, you see.
I dropped the candy and got to my feet, positioning the leash in my hands so that I was ensured complete control over my dog, although at the moment he wasn't actually doing anything besides shuffling and making uncertain little woofs. I asked the woman if we should maybe go to different aisles, and she smiled at me and said, "They need to learn."
Yeah, that's great, lady, your dog definitely needs to learn, so maybe you should, I dunno, teach it something? She had it on an extendable leash and was letting it have as much slack as it wanted, hadn't positioned her arm so that she would be able to pull against it if it decided to lunge, and it wasn't even wearing any kind of prong or choke collar. Not that a service dog should need one for everyday use, but they're good insurance in case something unexpected happens, like if someone decides they want to lure your dog over with a steak, or if you're face-to-face with a very irresponsible service dog owner who may or may not be about to let her dog attack your dog. Especially if you're a teenage girl and said dog is half your body weight. You can see how they would come in handy.
I started to back away, and the dog picked that moment to lunge. Poodleface started to jump toward it, and I can't really blame him; it was clearly challenging him, but, since he was wearing his prong collar (hint hint) as soon as I started moving backwards he gave up and came with me. We got to the end of the aisle, at which point the manager came hurrying over and told me to take my dog outside. I showed him Poodleface's service dog license and explained that my dog hadn't been the aggressor. He seemed a little upset about that, but he couldn't legally make either of us leave the store, so he just ordered me to stay away from the old lady, which I did, but whenever her dog caught a glimpse of me on the other end of an aisle it would start to growl again. She never seemed bothered by it and just kept smiling, so I left the store as quickly as I could and never got a chance to really talk to her.
In short, I don't know anyone else with a service dog with whom I can sit down and chat. If I thought there were enough people I'd probably try to start a support group, but this town is so small that, given two to three hours and some cool weather, I can actually walk from one end to the other. So I don't have anyone I can talk things over with and I have no idea if my experiences are common or unique, but I'm curious and I'd like to know. The thing I'd most like to talk about is my dreams.
Poodleface shows up in my dreams.
For almost two years after I got him I'd go to sleep and forget he existed, but one night, when I believe I was dreaming about jogging across a wavering foot bridge that sank abruptly into the water and necessitated me to jump, there he was beside me. A joyous white poodle leaping into the air, connected to me by our familiar leash; exactly six feet of leather that used to be red but has been worn to a supple dark brown by almost constant use.
The next night I was wandering around a beautiful museum that seemed to be part construction zone, and as I was crawling beneath scaffolding and lying on my back on a mosaic marble floor to see the paintings on the domed ceiling, Poodleface was right there beside me. I remember, I even decided to take the stairs rather than climb out a window and down a ladder because I knew he wouldn't be able to follow me.
For the past year he's been in almost all my dreams. He came with me up the stairs of the bus when the police chased and arrested me in the middle of the desert, I threw his leash away so that he wouldn't fall with me when I lost my footing on a narrow bridge, and I took him out into the river in a canoe, and then under the surface of the dark water and into a secret passage to explore with me. I've had dreams where he guided me, dreams where I lost him and panicked, dreams where he could speak and where I could send him on errands. He died once in my dreams, drowning in a swimming pool when I selfishly left him alone, and I cried myself awake and then called him over so I could hug him.
He twitches in his sleep and whimpers and snuffles, and I wonder if I'm in his dreams as often as he's in mine.
I have no idea if anyone else dreams about their service dog, and I'm really curious but have no idea who to ask. It's not like there's a manual for this kind of thing. (Which, come to think of it, there really should be. )
Maybe someone who's reading this could tell me?

How I (metaphorically) singed my nose hair

Poodleface and I went to a Renaissance Festival with my parents earlier this year. It was great; I saw performances and musicians and wonderful costumes, I bought a wooden sword I later accidentally rolled onto in my sleep and a Sky Chair that we'll probably never install, I was referred to as a 'fair maiden' with absolutely no sarcasm, and I successfully escaped the vendor who wanted to sell me a dog kilt, whatever the heck that is.
I also learned what happens when I walk past a stall selling roasted peanuts; Poodleface signals with more enthusiasm than I've ever seen, and I grab my nose and wonder if it's possible my nostrils have managed to spontaneously combust.
One of my many trivia books once told me that most kinds of sneezing powder are just finely ground pepper in a jar. So, since I was eleven and had no idea the kind of power that household pepper wields, I got some out of the spice cabinet and inhaled it. Walking past the peanut vendor was like that, only the burning was more intense and my eyes didn't immediately start to water. I kept walking, sneezed about five times, and felt a lot better. Not to sound like a mad scientist, but it was an interesting experience. Most of my peanut reactions center around my throat or my skin, but I'd just happened to be breathing through my nose this time.
After getting far away from the peanut vendor, I enjoyed the rest of my time at the Renaissance Festival, and I think Poodleface did too. It was a nice vacation. Well, except for the bit where I impaled myself on my own sword.

I'm a very loyal customer, even if you suck.

Poodleface and I went on a road trip with my father last summer. We stopped at a gas station around lunch time and picked up some Ruffles and DOTS, which we ate as we drove. The subject somehow turned to my DOTS, (which come in a yellow box and are a bit like gumdrops without the sugar coating) and I explained that I love them because they're completely peanut free and even print a notice on the package guaranteeing it. Now that's customer service. I went on to explain that I go out of my way to eat foods that do this because I'm so grateful for what they do and am more than happy to help them generate revenue. I ate several more DOTS, then added as an afterthought, "They're actually quite disgusting."
Dad had a good laugh about that.

Literary allergic alliteration attempt

I love to read. Since I want to be a writer someday, I can call this both a hobby and a career planning exercise. Which is why it really sucks that I'm allergic to libraries.
I have strange allergic reactions to library books. I once had a rash all the way up both arms before I'd even finished the first chapter. Another time, I didn't feel anything, but I started crying. It went way past watery eyes- I looked like I was crying my heart out. Some books make me cough, some books make me sneeze, some books make my hands hurt, and some books do nothing at all and I'm fine with handling them.
Most of the time it's not peanuts, it's smoke or mold or old paper or the perfume of the person who last read them. It doesn't have anything to do with Poodleface or with peanuts, but it really annoys me and I felt like mentioning it. I'm allergic to libraries.

Sorry, you're not allowed to die for your country

I support our troops, but I'd never thought about joining them. I'd always been small and thin and not very strong, until I had a massive growth spurt a few years ago, and now I'm tall and thin and not very strong. Enlisting just didn't seem like something I could do, or that I wanted to do.
Until I was told that I couldn't. Then I spent several days seriously considering enlisting anyway just to fuck with everybody.
See, my school has this torturous thing called "Post-high planning day" where we were all required to mill around the gym for forty-five minutes while people with brochures gave us free pens and tried to convince us that their college was best.
I already knew where I wanted to go to college. I'd decided three years ago, but I was still required to do things like this. I was also required to take career aptitude and personality match-up tests twice a year every year even though I'd been saying I wanted to be a writer since sixth grade, because God forbid we not have our entire lives planned out by the time we graduate.
Anyway, I really didn't care, so I found some of my friends and trailed along behind them, half-listening to canned speeches on various colleges and collecting a lot of free pens. Until we got to the table advertising military service, where the representative mistakenly assumed I cared and asked me why I had a service dog. When I told him, he said I couldn't enlist. How could they ensure my meals would be safe? How could they get me medical attention if they weren't? How much use was I if I dropped dead in the barracks instead of out on the battlefield where I might at least be able to trip someone?
I don't like being told I can't do things. I don't think anyone does. So even though I understand perfectly the logic behind it, it still really pisses me off. And even though I, personally, never wanted to enlist in the first place, there's probably someone like me out there who did.
What I'm really angry about is that I can't even say it's discrimination because it fucking makes sense. I've got to admit, I'm a very complicated person to accommodate.

Lovely, Poodleface :/

I was sitting in a cramped waiting room the other day, waiting to take the first part of the GED test along with seven other people who I didn't know. Sensing how tense we all were, Poodleface was on his best behavior. He searched my chair, sat where I indicated, and, still polite and with absolutely no change in expression, ripped an impressively squeaky fart.
The situation could have become paralyzingly awkward, but it actually did just the opposite. The laughter broke the ice and we were able to relax and start talking before we were called in to test. It reminded me of another reason I'd left school, (yes, another one) that a dog fart in high school was a good excuse to toss insults at the handler.
Seriously, if you have or are going to get a service dog, never go near a teenage boy. Just don't.

Poodleface once threw up in English. I'm not sure what happened, since up until then I'd only ever seen him throw up after an all-day car ride or after he tried to swallow a treat without chewing it. But it happened, and the teacher didn't want to call the janitor. She acted like I'd said something horrible when I asked her to, like I was trying to force my responsibilities onto someone else. She told me to get some paper towels from the bathroom and clean it up myself, but anyone who's ever had a dog knows that you can't get dog vomit out of carpet using only a paper towel. There's a stain there to this day, which there probably wouldn't be if she'd contacted the man the school pays to clean instead of making a sixteen-year-old do it herself like it was some kind of punishment.

Poodleface was once accused of sexual harassment. And no, he didn't climb onto anyone's leg. One day in math class he decided that he was tired of lying on his side and wanted to lie on his back, so he rolled over. And then the girl sitting in front of me began screaming that he was flashing her.
Poodleface is a dog. He walks around wearing nothing but a collar and a vest. The entire world can, at any time, see his boy parts, but it doesn't matter, because he's a dog. According to this girl's logic the squirrel outside my window needs to be arrested for indecent exposure.

Poodleface was once framed for a crime. There's a boy in my town who I do not get along with. At all. Our feud goes back to seventh grade. I'll refer to him in this post as "Hewitt."
Hewitt, budding psychopath that he is, one day had the brilliant idea that he could probably get me in a lot of trouble if he convinced everyone that Poodleface had taken a dump somewhere in the school. So he procured some dog crap and planted it in the Junior-Senior lounge, and then he made a big deal about pointing to it and exclaiming about it and apparently got impatient after a few minutes of this and started wondering just where the hell Chuck's forever girl was and why she wasn't tearfully denying everything to a stern-faced teacher. So Hewitt, incompetent budding psychopath that he is, went looking for me and found me eating lunch in the general cafeteria, which I always do, never having set foot in the Junior-Senior lounge all year, which he would have known if he'd done some reconnaissance first. Our conversation went like this:
Hewitt: "Hey, ChuckForeverGirl. You're in trouble."
Me: "What? Oh, it's you. Get lost."
Hewitt: "Chuck shit in the lounge! You're going to get suspended."
Me: "Chuck? He's under the table. What are you talking about?"
Hewitt: "There's dog shit in the lounge. Guess you should have cleaned up after him!"
Me: "I haven't been in the lounge all day!"
Hewitt: "There's dog shit! I'll show you, come on!"
Me: "What? What did you do to the door? Is something going to fall on me?"
Hewitt: "Nothing's going to fall on you! Come on, I swear there's really dog shit!"
Just a note to all you budding psychopaths out there; it's probably a good idea to let the authorities confront your intended victim. Doing it yourself pretty much gives the whole thing away.
Hewitt: "See? See the dog shit?"
Me: "Oh, come on! That's from a freaking chihuahua!"
Then I went to the principal and sent Hewitt up the river.

Poodleface occasionally farted, followed immediately by that gleeful "Oooh!" sound that adolescent males make when they've found something new to be vulgar about.

Poodleface sometimes needed to go outside and use the grass after lunch, and the school bullies quickly learned that it's really, really fun to insult someone while they're down on the ground bagging up dog shit.

Poodleface sometimes licked his unmentionables during class. It's great that he's responsible about his personal hygiene, but I really wish he wouldn't do it in public.

Where was I again?

Ever since I got Poodleface the world has had a tendency to get too complicated very, very quickly.
Let me explain: when you're in the middle of a large group of people, for example, you have a lot of things to worry about. Namely the location of your elbows and feet to ensure that you don't step on anyone. If you're like me, you're probably also trying not to brush against anyone or to let them brush against you, and you may or may not be attempting to navigate with a large purse, depending on where you keep your EpiPens. It's a lot to think about. Now, imagine yourself in the same situation, only you're steering a dog. You and the dog are walking close together because of the crowds, and occasionally you'll need to take a rather awkwardly-placed step to avoid treading on the dog. You'll also need to keep watch for any small children (or adults) who want to touch the dog, while still navigating the crowd, trying not to be touched and not to hit anyone with your purse.
Someone you know from school comes up to you and wants to talk. You're discussing the new headband you're wearing when you see, out of the corner of your eye, an unattended child running gleefully toward your dog. In your world, your friend no longer exists. You need to deal with the child, and if your friend is saying anything to you you're not hearing it. There are too many variables, too many balls in the air, and you've chosen to drop everything that doesn't matter and pick it up again later.
I'd seen the same thing happen to mothers with several children to wrangle, but I'd never realized it would happen to me. I didn't realize a lot of things.

Like that Poodleface talks in his sleep. It's night, I'm typing this in bed, and this is the third time I've talked him awake after he started whimpering. I really hope he catches that squirrel.

So please don't judge me?

Starting this blog wasn't easy. I'm so used to being told my allergy doesn't exist, I'm a liar, I'm paranoid, I just want attention....I could go on. So I'm typing everything under the hopeful assumption that none of you are going to come after me with proverbial pitchforks because of the things I'm saying.
I probably shouldn't be worried. The point of a blog is that only the people who want to read it read it. So if you're still here, I guess you believe me. And that's a really great feeling. Thank you!

A moment with my shattered dreams

Like any other child, I've had a lot of dreams about what I'd like my life to be like. Frustratingly, because of my allergy, most of them are going to be impossible.

I wanted to be a daycare worker.

I was only in daycare a few months, and most of the time I had a rash somewhere on my body. But there was something attractive about it, something fun, and I decided that when I was old enough to get a job I was going to work at a daycare center.

Which I now know I can't do because of snack time, and because little kids are often fed treats with peanuts before their parents bring them in. So I'd need to find a daycare that was entirely peanut-free.

I wanted to be a babysitter.

You can blame this one on the Babysitters Club books I used to read. But I can't do this one for the same reason I can't be a daycare worker, and also because no one is going to want to wipe down all the possibly nut-contaminated surfaces in their house to accommodate the teenager who's going to watch their kids for a few hours.

I wanted to be a flight attendant.

Flying seemed glamorous and cool, and what better way to see the world? But, of course, there's the whole they-serve-peanuts-on-airplanes problem, not to mention that I'd have to eat at restaurants and I'm extremely uncomfortable eating food I haven't made myself.

I wanted to be an actress.

I'm allergic to makeup. Which sucks, because I think I'd look great in green eye shadow. 

I wanted to have a summer job.

I can't work with food. At all. I can't serve it, I can't bag it, I can't stack it on the shelves. So that means the only stores I could possibly get hired at would be ones that sell clothing or electronics, both sought-after jobs that someone else always got first.

I wanted to be a vet.

Cat allergy.

I wanted to work in a pet store.

Cat allergy. And allergy to wood chips.

So, after careful consideration, I decided to become a writer.

How am I doing?

Do they just sit around waiting for a chance to call bullshit?

When I was in fifth grade my parents discovered the magic of almond butter. They had me try some, and although I didn't really like it, I said it was nice because they were so happy. They were thrilled that I could now get one step closer to a normal childhood and packed an almond butter and jelly sandwich in my lunch the next day.
Which prompted shouts of, "SHE'S NOT REALLY ALLERGIC TO PEANUTS!"
I tried to explain that it was ALMOND butter, but no one was interested in listening. They didn't want the truth to get in the way of their fun, and so I sat there crying on my sandwich while boys climbed over the tables to spread the joyous news that I was a liar.
Several years later the same thing happened again, this time while I was eating a Hershey bar. No one wanted to hear me explain that their chocolate bars are manufactured in their own facility, far away from peanuts. They were all too busy being loud about how they'd caught me.
Don't these people have better things to do than sit around waiting for a chance to accuse someone?

Next we'll rob you blind to teach good money management

A common argument by schools, mine included, is that they shouldn't have to enact policies for allergic kids because it would give them a false sense of security and prevent them from learning the self-protection skills they would need to live in the real world. As someone who went to a school with such a philosophy, I'm calling bullshit.

My school had no peanut-free table because they didn't want allergic kids to feel different. Which sounds wonderful, until you remember that we are different. There was also nothing available with which I could clean a table, so I was basically spending my lunches playing a low-stakes game of russian roulette and hoping my arms weren't going to break out in a rash. After a few weeks I started carrying wet wipes around and creating my own personal peanut-free zone.
Oh, and the death threat girl I discussed earlier quickly learned that she could evict me from any table I'd chosen simply by sitting down at it and opening a peanut butter cup. She had hours of fun doing this.
So, in my opinion, the lack of a peanut-free table attempted to gloss over my differences and encourage me to pretend to be normal, which is a good way to get myself killed. Probably not a helpful life skill.

My school had no list of alternative candy. Every year I would think, "This is it. We're finally too old to be rewarded with candy." And every year I would be proven wrong. I was a Junior in high school when I walked out, so who knows, maybe in Senior year they no longer throw candy around the room. But I doubt it.
Whenever a teacher pulled out a bag of candy and announced a quiz game I would lean forward to see the label, and about half the time I recognized it as a brand that uses peanuts or is processed on equipment that also handles products containing peanuts, and I had to go sit in the hall for the rest of the class. Which kind of defeats the purpose of school, don't you think?
I know how to walk out of a room, so don't tell me I'm learning any important surviving-the-world techniques, and I'm certainly not learning the subject material. The only thing being banished from quiz games teaches me is which teachers are nice, caring people who truly want all their students to succeed, and which ones are only there for the coffee and the chance to hand out detentions. Probably not a helpful life skill.

My school didn't give a damn what was wrong with you, you were going to eat what you made in home ec!
I had a lot of problems with home ec. Firstly, the teacher was a neat freak who made you Lysol your chair if she caught you sitting on your feet, which I liked to do because I was a small kid and wanted my head on the same level as everyone else's. Secondly, the teacher didn't really see anything wrong with pairing me up with the previously mentioned death threat girl for a module on crotchet, and didn't ask her to stop talking about killing me even though our station was the one closest to her desk. And thirdly, even though I requested I not be given a module for which I would have to cook, she gave me a module for which I would have to cook. And nothing in the fridge had a label.
I actually have no idea why nothing in the fridge had a label. She told me it had to do with the school not being allowed to promote one brand name over another, which seemed like kind of a stupid rule and also meant that there were no ingredients lists. So I told her okay, I'll cook, but I want to wear plastic gloves and I'm not eating any of it.
She nixed the plastic gloves and told me that I was going to be eating all of it.
Everything in that fridge had been opened and who knows who had had their fingers in it, and there weren't any ingredients lists for me to check, and there was a jar of peanut butter staring me down from the top shelf, and she wanted me to cook with this stuff with my bare hands and then eat it. I wondered, did she also want me to call the ambulance myself?
I refused to eat any of it, forcing my disgruntled module partner to deal with the half-rate food we made before the teacher dropped by to do a plate check and make sure every morsel had been consumed. By the end of the week we were halving all the measurements so my partner didn't explode.
Honestly, what was the point of that? It didn't teach me anything, except how to lie to a teacher and get away with it. It actually seems to go beyond refusing to make accommodations and enter the realm of deliberately setting students up to fail, or to get themselves killed.

My school had a zero-tolerance policy with no exceptions. I knew a girl who had asthma, and to use her inhaler she had to ask her teacher for permission to go to the office, and then she had to walk there (because running is strictly prohibited no matter the circumstance), convince the evil gatekeepers (aka the skeptical secretaries) that she needed to see the nurse, and then she got her inhaler. To get a disgusting yet helpful Benadryl tablet I had to do the same, although my teachers rarely let me out of the room and the secretaries liked to spend a few minutes trying to trick me into admitting something before letting me make my request to the nurse. And every time I was in there they would all try to convince me to leave my EpiPens with them for safekeeping instead of, I don't know, carrying them on my person like the emergency lifesaving devices that they were? Because it's so practical to have me walk to the office while I'm going into anaphylactic shock.
The only life-skill this taught me is that I should never freely admit I'm carrying medication, and that I should always keep some disgusting Benadryl tablets in my bag and should take on in a bathroom stall when I think I need it.

I'm just like Jane!

My father and I love to watch The Mentalist. In one episode (spoiler alert!) we get to see Patrick Jane consciously mess with his body's reactions to fake alcohol poisoning. He goes the whole mile, even influencing his heart rate and blood pressure to make it look real.

And I, apparently, can do the same thing. Although my reasons are less honorable; I don't want to catch a killer, I just want to get out of class, and I might also want your sympathy, although opinions vary on just how devious I am. 

You see, someone at my school read an article that said that allergic people can actually make themselves have a reaction by focusing hard enough on what it feels like to have a reaction. 

This was fascinating! It explained that weird nut girl perfectly! We all knew it wasn't possible to be that allergic; she must be doing it to herself!

The article made the rounds, and soon I couldn't cough without half a dozen of my fellow thirteen-year-olds furiously cursing me out for daring to try and pull this crap again.

Opinions varied on why I was actually doing it. Some people thought I didn't realize what I was doing, I was just so helplessly paranoid I wound myself up into fits of panic. I was clearly sick and I needed psychiatric help. Others thought I wanted to be special. I wanted adults to feel sorry for me and treat me differently. I was so desperate to have a disability I was doing everything in my power to fake one. And some people just thought I didn't have the balls to cut class the traditional way.

I showed people that I had a rash, that my skin was patched with angry red. They told me I'd rubbed my skin raw with my nails in an attempt to make it look real. I coughed and coughed, covering my mouth like I wanted to stop, but they told me they knew I was just a good actress. 

And I wasn't sure whether or not they were right. I mean, so many people furious at a thirteen-year-old girl for being sick, shouting at her that what she was claiming wasn't even possible? How could I not begin to believe them?

I asked my parents whether they were right. Was I faking all of this? Did I have something wrong with me mentally? 

My parents had my doctor write the school a note about my allergy. They took it into the office and made sure everyone saw it, and they asked to speak with all my teachers and re-explained what I'd already told them, and left the note with the school nurse to put in my file.

But as soon as my parents left everyone went back to treating me like I was crazy. My teachers told me to stop being dramatic, my classmates shouted at me for being such a bitch. And then they all took it one step further and demanded to know why I was pretending to have an allergy in the first place.

Now it wasn't just the attacks I was faking.

It was the whole allergy.

I really, really hated myself for daring to be allergic to peanuts. Clearly it wasn't right. Clearly it wasn't acceptable. I should just do what everyone was telling me to and stop having the allergy.

But I couldn't do it. 

And there was something else I couldn't do.

I thought, if I was already doing it, already subconsciously faking to get myself out of class, what was wrong with doing it deliberately? If I can't stop, if it's a compulsion that I have no control over, I might as well make it useful and do it to get out of a class I really hate, right? 

So I tried it during math class.

I concentrated really hard on the way it felt to have a reaction. The way my neck and chin prickled. The hot, unpleasant taste in my mouth. The way light was too bright, and the compulsion to cough that I couldn't fight, even when I was barely getting enough air to breathe. 

Nothing happened.

Okay, that was okay, I'd just pretend I was feeling it. It only had to look real. So I scratched at my arms a bit and tried to recreate a rash.

It didn't look right. Rashes are patchy-looking, this just looked like I'd scratched too hard. Why couldn't I do it? If I'd done it so many times before, why couldn't I do it now???

Maybe because I'd actually been telling the truth?

Not that it mattered to everyone else. They all still hated me. Which is probably why they had no problem handing out death threats; I clearly wasn't allergic, so the threat wasn't even real. And why the hell did the school let me get a service dog for a condition I didn't have? That didn't even exist?

I hate this town. 

And the feeling appears to be mutual.

Death threats

When I was in junior high I did something that irritated another girl. I'm not sure what. I just remember that one day she tapped me on the shoulder, and when I turned to her she smiled at me and told me that she was going to take a peanut and kill me.
I slapped her. I was so angry I could barely think. Not about what she'd said, but the look on her face when she'd said it. Positively gleeful.
I went to the office and said that I wanted to speak to the principal because someone had given me a death threat. He was very serious about it, very official, until I mentioned that it wasn't a knife or a gun she'd threatened me with, but a peanut. Then he relaxed. He told me that she had only been teasing me, and talked over my protests to say that kids will be kids, everyone is bullied in school. Then he told me that he could suspend me for hitting her, and if anyone was ever being mean to me again I shouldn't fight back, because if I fought back we would both have to be punished.
The next day she found me again and re-told her story, expanding the plot a little to include her going to my house and killing my pets and smearing their bodies with peanut butter so I couldn't bury them, and then killing me slowly in the empty house when I came home and was crying.
This time I didn't hit her. I didn't touch her. I didn't even insult her. I just went back to the principal, who reminded me that this happens to every kid before sending me back out of his office.
And then she would not leave me alone.
And I completely believed her. I believed that if she ever got an opportunity, if we were ever alone together, she would kill me. She looked happiest when she was imaging scenarios of my death.
And she wouldn't stop touching me. She sat behind me in third period, and she loved to brush her hands along the back of my neck and whisper threats in my ear. I hated being touched. I knew that someone's breakfast, or their hand lotion, or their pet cat could make me sick if they touched me. But my teachers told me to just ignore her, and my principal ordered me to stop using reporting her as an excuse to get out of class.
And she laughed at me. She looked so happy. I wanted to attack her and scratch her face off with my nails, but I'd been told that I would be suspended if I hurt her.
I didn't want to go anywhere alone. If I met her alone, off school grounds, I knew she'd try to kill me. But as long as I was only seeing her in the classroom she would never have a chance, and all she'd be able to do to me was imagine in my ear.
And she had friends. After a few weeks there were others who realized that no one would stop them if they wanted to threaten me. People passed me notes with threats on them, and they shouldered past me in the hall, shouting "PEANUT!" as they went. I took the notes to the office, but by now I'd so annoyed the principal that the secretaries threw me out as soon as I walked in the door. My English teacher was the only one who took the notes seriously, and she called their parents herself instead of trying to go through the principal.
I started getting sick much more often than before. My teachers got mad at me, said this was just my latest excuse to get out of class. I'd always gotten skin rashes, always felt a little off, but now it was like I was always prickly, always gray, always on the edge of sick. I wanted to tear the skin off my fingers or slam my hands in a door, do something to them because they always hurt now.
I started wearing long sleeves, and I pulled them over my hands before I touched anything. It made me feel better.
And I got used to death threats. I learned to recognize the voice of boredom and the voice of hatred and know which threats I should fear. And I learned to pretend I felt fine, and to quickly get out of the way of someone who wanted to touch me.
And sometime in eighth grade, they stopped caring. I got boring. And the girl who I'd been so sure would kill me seemed to hit some kind of anger wall, and she lashed out at everyone, and now she was the one being bullied.
But I spent a year afraid for my life, and none of my teachers cared. I told my parents a few times, when it got bad, when I was really angry, and they called the school and my teachers brushed them off and didn't actually do anything, and it upset them so much I just stopped bringing it up.
And people still threatened me, every now and then, when they felt like it.
I guess that's why they thought it would be okay to hurt my service dog.
That's why I left, you know. Someone kicked my service dog. And my teachers didn't see anything wrong with it.
So now I have a blog.
What else am I supposed to do?

Things I didn't realize

A lot of things changed for me when I got Poodleface. Some of them I was anticipating, but some surprised me. Things like:

• Constantly having my hands full. I loop Poodleface's leash around my right thumb and hold any slack leash in my right hand. I slide my left hand along the leash to let out or take back leash, depending on the size of the crowd we're in and any obstacles we might need to navigate around. This means that I can't carry many things, have to transfer the leash to my left hand before I can shake hands, and have to use a cart or a basket when I'm shopping for more than one item at a time. 
• Hearing people gossip about me when I'm right there. It's apparently socially acceptable to point out someone with a service dog and debate with your friend what might be wrong with them. It's apparently not socially acceptable to turn to people who are gossiping about you, smile exaggeratedly, and explain all the things they were wondering in an overly sugary voice. Which I don't think is very fair.
• Having to deal with someone else's switch from anger to deep embarrassment without making them feel worse. Some people politely take me aside and ask for confirmation that my dog is a service dog, but others feel the need to shout from across the store that I'd better take my dog outside this instant. Then they inevitably feel like dicks when they figure out it's a service dog, and I feel like I have to console the person who was just ranting at me. It's uncomfortable for both of us. 
• Having to wonder if that compliment was meant for me or for my dog. A cashier once said, "You look beautiful!" to which I responded, "Thanks." Then she turned three shades of red and confided that she'd actually been speaking to my dog. And at a school competition I once incurred the wrath of a judge by expressing annoyance that she jumped up to greet and talk to the dog of the contestant she was supposed to be judging before paying any attention to me. My supervising teacher later showed me the long, angry note she'd left on my score card about how I was far too rude and sensitive about my dog and should really learn some self-control. Excuse me for wanting to be spoken to before my four-legged companion who doesn't understand you and can't answer.
• Never, ever being alone. Poodleface sleeps in my room and comes with me whenever I leave the house. My only poodle-free moments are when I'm showering, and even then only when I lock the bathroom door because he's figured out how to open it. 
• Not getting sick anymore. I didn't really believe it could happen, but it did. No more painful rashes, no more coughing fits, no more sick headaches. I still sneeze far too much from my allergies to dust, pollen, and perfume, but I no longer feel horrible several times a month. And it's great.

What the eff happened?

Something that has puzzled me for many years: why do so many people think I'm a liar?
My parents did what all good parents are supposed to do. They got in touch with my school every year, made sure all my teachers knew about my allergy, dropped off a doctor's note saying I should be able to carry an EpiPen, and generally reminded everyone not to poison their daughter. So what the eff happened to convince a very vocal portion of the community that I'm boldly faking it for attention???
I've had teachers who were wonderful, and I've had friends who were wonderful, but I've also been approached by people who want me to know they think I'm a lying sack of crap.
One of my assigned guidance counselors, when I asked her to help me with some kids who were taunting me about peanuts, told me that it was because they knew what I was saying was ridiculous, and if I dropped the whole peanut thing and ate school lunch like a normal person everyone would like me again. My art teacher, although she seemed to like me, never understood why I wanted her to check ingredients lists, and I was constantly storming out of the art room under an irritated black cloud because she'd brought us yet another snack I couldn't be in the room with. Kids have come up to me in the lunch room or the halls and asked me why I'm so dramatic about my allergy, and I've been issued one or two detentions, which I opted not to show up for, because I left a room to go to the nurse to get treatment for a reaction the teacher didn't believe I was having. So what did I do to convince these people that I'm a liar?
And not everyone stops the conspiracy train with the idea that I crave the spotlight. In a terrifying shouting match with a teacher I was very intimidated by, I was asked why I felt the need to control everyone around me. All this because I asked him if, this time, he could bring us a candy I could have too. And when I got my service dog the shit really hit the fan, with people snarling at me that it must be wonderful for me to be able to bring my pet to school.
I have wondered for years and I am really at a loss for explanations, what did I do?!?!?!?!
For a while, even after leaving school, I secretly feared I was all the things they'd said I was. That subconsciously I really did want attention.
Then I read about the conflict in Florida.
For those of you who didn't follow it, a group of parents decided to protest the security measures an elementary school had put in place to protect a six-year-old with peanut allergies. And I mean protest protest, as in, they stood outside with signs. Because of a six-year-old girl.
So now I'm hopeful that maybe it's the world that's crazy and not me. Kind of like that line from one of the more poorly-written episodes of Star Trek, "If there's nothing wrong with me, maybe there's something wrong with the universe!"
Well, maybe there is something wrong with the universe if it's so determined to be angry with allergic children. So what can I do to change the world, besides blog about it?

The candy shop

I used to love Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It was even my favorite movie for a while, until I discovered Pokemon. I used to wish that a candy shop would open in my town so I could stop there on the way home from school like Charlie did.

It took me a few years to realize that I should probably stop making that wish because even if one did open I wouldn't be able to go. In elementary school I frequently irritated my teachers by approaching them just after lunch and whining that "my chin itched," which was seven-year-old speak for "I'm having an allergic reaction and it itches like hell, mostly on my hands and arms and also my elbows and where I've been leaning my head on my hand." Then they had to send me to the bathroom with orders to take a sponge bath in the sink, and while I was gone write up a note for the lunch monitor reminding them, once again, not to seat me near anyone who had peanuts! Somehow, even though I was very aware I was allergic to peanuts, and couldn't be anywhere near peanuts, and couldn't eat lots of different candies because of peanuts, it took a while for me to figure out that I wouldn't be able to stroll into a candy shop like a normal kid.

Which is why I was just a little annoyed last year when my wish very tardily came true. 

My mother and pretty much everyone else knew about this long before I did, and by the time I'd heard about it from a friend my mother, who actually reads the newspaper, had already called them and asked if they used peanuts at all. Her question was me with a resounding yes, there were peanuts in the brownies and the cookies and the ice cream and the jars of candy they had just sitting around. So when my friend mentioned in front of her that we should stop there on our Christmas shopping, she cut in to say I probably shouldn't even think about it. 

I decided to think about it anyway, and I then decided that it would probably be alright if I just walked in with my friend and did my awkward little stand-there-and-don't-touch-anything routine. I'd perfected it over years of school field trips and parties and rewards for which we ended up at a restaurant or went out for ice cream or did something else for which I was required to stand off to the side and watch everyone else have fun. I'd gotten used to it, and I really wanted to be able to go to the candy shop with my friend and do something that normal kids do. As I recall, I hadn't yet figured out that having a service dog pretty much proved I wasn't normal and should probably stop trying before I hurt myself, and so into the candy shop we went. 

I thought it smelled very nice, and unfortunately so did my dog, although his definition of nice meant that I was going to have to praise him and/or give him a treat. He sat, signaling that he'd found some peanuts, but had trouble telling me where. We were in the middle of the room and not near any of the counters or tables, and when I asked him he pointed in several directions and then repeated his signal, as though he was trying to alert on the air itself. I patted him and rubbed his ears and told him he was a good dog, and we went over and stood next to my friend while she filled a bag with the candies she wanted to give her mother for Christmas. I coughed once into my sleeve, and my friend immediately turned to me and asked if I was alright. She was one of the few people in my town who actually believed me when I told them about my allergies, and she was probably being smarter about the whole situation than I was. I told her I was fine.

As she paid I coughed several more times, and after she'd rushed us from the shop I spent several minutes coughing so hard I was afraid I might accidentally vomit.  

So, in short, I was an idiot. It was the first stupid thing I'd done in years, but I made up for lost time with level of idiocy. At least I had the foresight not to lean on anything.

I still look in the windows when I pass that place, although I'm not dumb enough to go back in. It's really frustrating at times just how much I can't do, and what's worse is that so many people don't believe me. 

Whenever I think of the candy shop I remember a scene from a movie we watched in eighth grade History. It was about segregation, and at one point we saw a black-and-white image of a girl sadly looking through the window of a soda shop she couldn't enter. 

Sometimes I really feel different.

Meet Riley! (and the trouble with being safe)

This is a news video about another girl with an allergen alert dog.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqrdtqJPBLE
In the video Riley's mother tells us that her daughter has almost died six times. Sounds impressive, doesn't it? It's the kind of statement that really drives home just how bad her allergy really is.
To qualify for an allergen alert dog I had to have a recent allergy test proving that my allergy was as bad as I said it was. So my parents drove me to a nearby city to see the only allergist in the state (we really do live in the middle of nowhere) and see if my allergy was still just as severe.
The first thing the allergist asked me was how many times I'd been to the emergency room in the last year. Rather proud of myself, I told him none. To which he smiled and reassured me that I didn't need a service dog, I clearly wasn't that allergic.
Hold on, hold it, hold the phone! I'd stayed out of the emergency room by being responsible about my allergy! I'd carried chewable Benadryl tablets everywhere and taken one whenever I was having a reaction, before it got bad. I had turned down numerous invitations to eat out. I'd packed my lunch every day for school, and I'd cleaned the table with a wet wipe before I sat down. I never, never ate anything that wasn't packaged, sealed, and with a clear list on ingredients, or that I hadn't made myself. Therefore, I hadn't had any reactions from ingesting peanuts, which are the kind most likely to be lethal in under five minutes. I'd had lots of reactions from physical contact or from the smell or from inhaling peanut dust, but they were less likely to be severe and I'd always taken medication. I thought I should be commended for my diligence, and that it was obvious I must be very allergic if I was still managing to get sick from peanuts even with all I was doing to stay safe.
The allergist wasn't the first person I'd heard this from. Adults my parents had attempted to explain me to found it hard to believe that I could be as allergic as they said I was if they didn't have at least one horror story about a doctor pulling me back from the brink.
I don't like having reactions. They hurt. A lot. I think it makes sense that I go out of my way to avoid them.
My parents convinced the allergist that I should be tested anyway, just to humor them. We didn't get the results of the test until a few days later, by phone call, when we were back home. Which is too bad, because I would have liked to watch his face when he learned that yes, I did in fact have a severe allergy, yes, it was bad enough to be lethal, and yes, I did need a service dog.
If I was diabetic or asthmatic or something I wouldn't have to tell people a near-death horror story to make them believe me. It's irritating that I need to do so for an allergy.

Okay, I'll prove it!

As some of you may know, last year I dropped out of public school to be home schooled and study for a GED because I didn't like the way the school system was handling my allergy. And by handling, I mean determinedly ignoring in the hope it would just go away. Apparently, imposing any kind of anti-peanut rule would actually be detrimental to me because it would "give me a false sense of security" and I "wouldn't know how to keep myself safe in the real world." 

For the record, learning how to decipher an ingredients list is learning to keep myself safe in the real world. Leaving the room every time we play a quiz game with candy is not. 

At some point I mentioned to someone that I actually had a disability and therefore they were being real dicks not even trying to include me in things. They more or less laughed in my face. (I say more or less because I'm not sure if that little scoffing sound adults make when a child has just said something hilariously incorrect really counts as a laugh.)

Well, you know what? My school really pissed me off, so now I'm going to prove it!!!

http://www.capenews.net/communities/sandwich/news/273

Personally, I don't get why everyone finds it so hard to believe. I have to carry an EpiPen everywhere. I have to triple-check that all my food is safe. If I mess up I could get very sick and need to be rushed to the hospital, or even die. Before I got Poodleface I had several small reactions a week, mostly painful skin rashes, from touching contaminated surfaces. My allergy clearly puts restraints on my life. 

Why I hate the movie theater

I mean, apart from the dusty air and prickly seats and peanut candy and close quarters with complete strangers, some of whom wear way too much aftershave. 

Putting all that aside, I hate it because there's no place to stick a dog. 

I'd like to be clear, I'm not speaking of theaters in general, only the small one in my town. I swore I'd never go in there again after the painful rash and coughing fit I developed in the middle of Prince Caspian, but the sixth Harry Potter movie was just too important to miss. I'd had my service dog for two months. I figured I could have him check my seat and the area around it, and while I'd probably be rather uncomfortable I would try my hardest to stay for the entire movie. I knew the floor would probably be a little dirty, so I planned ahead and brought a beach towel for him to sit on. Of course, I didn't realize how stupid I would feel carrying it through the lobby, or just how much crap really builds up on a theater floor. It looked like the entire contents of a medium popcorn had been scattered around under my seat, and when I knelt down to spread out the towel I saw sour patch kids, nerds, and malted milk balls all over the floor. My poor dog had to lie in the middle of the canine version of an all-you-can-eat buffet and not touch anything. For the first hour he reluctantly behaved himself, but in the final scenes he couldn't help it. He just had to have one little piece of popcorn. 

Afraid he was going to eat something chocolate, I got out of my seat and sat on the towel with him in an aisle barely large enough to accommodate my legs. The poor dog had his feet under one seat and his head under another attempting to fit, and I couldn't see anything and missed Dumbledore's death. It was a really miserable experience. 

The next Harry Potter movie my family watched in a bigger theater in a bigger town a three-hour drive away. They had clean floors, and there was an entire row that was wider with the seats spaced farther apart, specifically designed for people with wheelchairs, crutches, and service dogs. The chairs were reasonably soft and the air was filtered well enough that nothing set off my allergies. Now, that was a great experience. Why can't all theaters be like that?

Why I hate the movies

We can learn a lot from Hollywood. Over the years I've learned lots of useful things from them, such as:

• The air vents are the perfect way to move through any building. There will never be any dust in these vents and no one will turn on the air conditioning while I happen to be inside.
• Foreign people prefer to speak in heavily accented English when alone.
• The more I hate someone, the more likely it is we're going to fall in love after a night of spontaneous passion.
• When you need to shut someone up at a cocktail party, just grab some food from a nearby tray and shove it in their mouth.

All valuable lessons, but I take issue with the last one. You don't spontaneously force food on someone. What if they're vegan? What if it wasn't kosher? What if they're allergic to it? What are you going to do then, huh?!?! Ever think of that???

I hate the spontaneous force-feeding gag almost as much as I hate the dog food commercial with the boy in the wheelchair. For those of you who haven't seen it, it's about a high school boy who only feeds his service dog this one wonderful brand of dog food. We know it's a service dog because we see it go up on its hind legs and push open a door for him while he does a voice-over about this great dog food. In the final scene he rolls up to a table outside on a bright sunny day, and a pretty blonde girl, presumably one of his friends, leans over and pats his dog on the head. 

Until I saw that commercial I never understood why the general public thought they could pet my dog without asking. Now I get it. The media are idiots. 

And while I'm talking about tv and movies, why do only geeks have allergies? You might think allergies cause geekiness, or perhaps geekiness causes allergies, but I think I can safely say neither is true. In addition to peanuts I'm also allergic to cats, dust, pollen, wool, and perfumed or strongly scented things, and, apart from wearing glasses, I fit none of the usual geek stereotypes. So seriously Hollywood? What's up with that? 

For me, one of the worst things about having allergies, even worse than not being able to eat candy corn, is how some people automatically assume I'm going to be an uncool panicky organic food snob because that's how people with allergies look in the movies. Heck, just look at the Dorfmans from iCarly!

Please don't stereotype people with allergies. It further complicates our already stressful lives.

Why restaurants hate allergies

http://notalwaysright.com/more-truffle-than-its-worth/10023

How I learned to respect my elders. (not really)

Most people are reasonably nice about my service dog. Some touch without asking, but since they nearly always have the decency to be embarassed when I tell them to stop it's hard to hold a grudge. However, there was one woman, who I remembered this morning on my way to the mall for some new pants, who apparently decided that acting embarassed was a stupid course of action when the whole thing was really my fault anyway, which has now earned her a post on my blog. Because I'm still pissed about it.
I live somewhere very small. Just big enough for businesses to come in and try their luck, but small enough that they're sent packing months later, completely broke. In my seventeen years I've watched five pet shops, two toy stores, one Payless, one music store, and a lot of stores I'm probably forgetting meet their doom. I spend a lot of time hoping that the book store isn't going next, and it's just passed the four year mark so I'm cautiously optimistic that it's going to be ok.
Back in January I went to the mall with a friend. We wandered around for about twenty minutes before going into the novelty shop that had arrived five months ago. We looked at some figurines and some stress balls and some large light-up plant-type things, and we were holding up some stretchy shirts and laughing about them when the one adult manning the store came up behind me and began petting my dog. I turned around and told her to stop. My next sentence was going to be about how my dog is a service dog and they can't be petted, but I only got part of it out before being severely scolded for my rudeness. Shocked, I looked up from my dog and saw that her expression suggested she was sucking on a lemon seasoned with Dramamine that had said something nasty about her mother. Surely, I thought, she was angry because my friend and I had been being loud, not because I'd told her not to pet my dog.
Nope, actually. It was the dog.
My friend stepped up beside me and told her politely that not even she could pet my dog, that was just how service dogs work. She cut her off as well to further criticize my social skills and say that the way I'd spoken to her had been horribly rude and I obviously had no respect for my elders. Beginning to panic, I stammered something about how respect didn't play into it, she just couldn't pet my service dog, it said so on his jacket. Once again, she talked over me about my rudeness, this time adding that I should be ashamed of myself. And then she threw me out of the store.
For telling her not to pet my dog, she threw me out of the store.
I was pretty sure that was illegal in some way, and tried to say so. She repeated that I was rude and that I should learn to respect my elders. Then she pointed toward the door and pursed her lemon-sucking lips even tighter. I considered asking to speak to her supervisor. I considered pulling out my cell phone and threatening to call the police and ask if she was allowed to throw me out for this. I considered behaving like the teenager I was and leaving in a storm of profanity. Not being particularly brave, the method of exit I chose was to gape at her for a few seconds, then slink out the door with my cheeks burning and blood pounding in my ears.
My friend and I found a new store to be loud in, occasionally tossing her more offensive statements back and forth and listing all the reasons she was a bitch. And then we realized something sobering. I'd left my coat in the store.
We returned to find it lying on the counter and the woman determinedly ignoring us as she fiddled with the register. Having had time to think about what I should have done, I asked to speak to her supervisor. She told me she was in charge here. I told her I was sorry if I'd offended her but service dogs just can't be petted. She told me, again, that I was rude and needed to respect my elders and threw me (and my coat) out of the store. Again.
By this time I'd overcome my initial fight-or-flight response to having and authority figure so angry at me and decided that I was no longer scared and was instead pissed as hell. I saw no disrespect in telling her she couldn't pet my dog and was unimpressed by her continual use of the "I'm your elder" card, in my opinion only slightly less irritating than the "It's because I'm black" card. My friend and I went down the the mall office intending to file a complaint, but found a sign saying that it was only staffed on the dates listed on the door, the day we were there not being one of them, and that if we wanted to report something we would need to call the listed number. So we got out my cell phone and called the listed number, got an answering machine, and discovered from the message that we needed to be able to tell them the name of the store. So my friend ran off again to find out what it was while I sat on the floor outside the empty office in the ghost town of a mall that apparently ran itself. Once we had the name we called again and left the message.
Two weeks later the store went out of business. I'm not going to pretend I was sad.

Cracked.com agrees with me

Oh, I do love Cracked. I think I've just found my new educational aid.

http://www.cracked.com/funny-5922-allergies/

From behind enemy lines

I like to stay up-to-date on allergy news, so in addition to checking out the articles in the Health section every time I'm on CNN, I regularly Google for news about peanut allergies with all the search terms I can think of, and I always read the comments. Occasionally I'll also come across a mother's blog about her peanut-allergic children, one of the things that inspired me to start a blog of my own, and it's nice to know that there are others who have the same problems.
Given my obvious stand on the issue of food allergies, there are some things in my search history that would confuse the heck out of any secret agents hacking my computer. Not only do I search for articles that say peanut allergies are real, I also search for ones that say they're all faked. In addition to making my blood boil, they tell me the kind of misconceptions I need to be on the lookout for. Here are the things I've discovered:

1. "Food allergies are a figment of the imagination of hysterical parents." This one is annoyingly hard to disprove in any sort of logical argument. It's a stereotype, and even if it wasn't, a certain amount of hysteria is justified when you have a severely allergic child.
2. "Most people who claim to have a food allergy really just don't like that food." I once saw a cartoon where a muppet-like creature claimed to be allergic to flour when it was raw, but not when it was baked into cookies, because he didn't want to have to help bake them but still wanted to eat them. It's a trick I'm sure lots of small children have pulled to attempt to get out of eating vegetables. This one's also annoying in that I'm sure the person at one point met or heard about a kid who did just that, but I would say to them that the difference between the two is that the faker will seem joyful about the whole thing, while the truthful child will honestly feel left out. 
3. "If the kid is that allergic then what the hell are they doing out in the world?" Also annoying, because, as much as I hate to admit it, they have a point. However, I have a counter-point: "Would you have me live my life by internet proxy from the 'safety' of my living room sofa because you can't wait five minutes to open a peanut butter cup? Would you also light up a smoke in front of an asthmatic because it's 'their problem'?"
4. "My kid has a right to eat peanut butter!" This one doesn't annoy me so much as it makes me weep for the future of our nation. Your kid also has a right to keep and bear arms, but we have anti-gun policies around school zones because no one likes it when kids get hurt and/or killed. 
5. "Oh come on. It's not that bad." I must admit, I didn't get this one off the internet but instead heard it from various teachers, acquaintances, and family members. Very annoying, to say the least. Don't talk down to me until you've walked a mile in my shoes, or until you've spent an evening throwing up because those cookies, unbeknownst to you, were made in a facility that also processes peanuts. Oh, and then there's the migraine. You'll have one of those too. Not to mention a flu-like fatigue and most likely a rash.

As infuriating as it is for me to read about these things, the comment section usually makes me smile and nod in agreement. Even in the stronghold of the enemy there are plenty of people willing to tell their stories in an attempt to discredit everything they've just read. 

Candy corn

Today I would like to talk about something that's been bugging me for years.
Candy corn.
Halloween has never been an easy time for me. Someone would always take me trick or treating, but it was never as fun as they made it look on tv. Not only does my family live in a cold place that makes it impossible to trick or treat without a coat, I had to stand on people's doorsteps and watch them drop things into my bag I knew I could never eat. At home my father would sort my candy and give me dimes for anything suspect, usually leaving me with nothing but tootsie rolls. I hated it.
But when I was seven, when my parents started giving me an allowance, I realized that I could tag along on grocery trips and buy myself an entire bag of Halloween candy that I knew was safe, and I could have it any time in October, no need to wait. I probably drove my parents up the wall with my constant sugar high, but that's not the point.
The point is, I nearly always picked candy corn. And even better than candy corn (if possible) were those little orange pumpkins that taste exactly the same but are bigger and feel nicer to bite into. I loved those. I brought them to school in my lunch box all October and for a long time after, until I'd eaten every last one that I'd bought with every last penny I'd found in the couch. Candy corn was a tradition with me, a comforting "at least" I could always go back to. "I couldn't eat half the things at the class party this year, but at least I've got half a bag of candy corn waiting for me at home!"
And what did they do? Oh, nothing much, only went and changed their manufacturing locations! So now, instead of ending with yellow dye number five, the list of ingredients ends with a warning about traces of peanuts!
HOW DARE THEY!!! Do they not realize they've driven a stake through the hearts of millions of allergic children? Can they not comprehend the sadness they are raining over the nation? "Contains peanuts" is bad enough, but "may contain peanuts" sounds like something a school yard bully would say. "Ooh, these may contain peanuts! You've loved them all your life, want to take a chance?"
But after I'd had my initial shocked temper tantrum in the candy aisle (I've gotta say, you get strange looks when you flip the bird to a bag of candy. In my defense, I was only fourteen.) I decided to relax, breathe deeply, and take to the internet. Surely there was someone, somewhere, who would sell me some peanut-free candy corn.
Actually, no. There wasn't.
It's September and they're starting to stock the Halloween candy again. Once again I'm going to see advertisements and holiday specials about all the things I can't do. But this year, once again, I'm going to have to do it without my comforting "at least." I can no longer have candy corn.
At least I have a blog to complain to.

Things that make me smile

• SERVICE ANIMALS WELCOME signs. I see one of those and I know I'm going to be left alone.
• Mothers who say to their children as I pass, "Oh, see, that's a service dog. Now, the thing about service dogs is that they can't be petted, they're working. They help people with special needs...." I'm instantly proud of any mother I hear say that. 
• People who approach me and say, "I have a sister who's considering getting a service dog. Can I ask you a few questions?"
• Employees who show me where to find the frozen peas without saying one word about my dog.
• People who tell off other people who attempt to pet my dog, sometimes before I've even noticed it's happening.
• Dog owners who immediately control their barking dogs so I don't have to worry about them running over and provoking Poodleface.
• Obvious dog lovers with enough self-control to admire my dog from afar.

And, finally, the thing that makes me smile the most,

• People I've known for a while who one day say to me, "Oh my gosh! For a moment there, I forgot you have a service dog" 

Things that make me wince

• Loud, smiling women who rush over to me in public and begin with a joyful, "Oh, my sister had a chihuahua with fur just that shade!", and proceed to ignore my escape tactics and lack of eye contact and regale me with little Toby's life story. (While some people with service dogs are probably dog lovers, I, personally, just want to finish my shopping.)
• Unsupervised children running nearby. They tend to gravitate toward a dog, and more than once I've accidentally made one cry by telling them not to pet it. The situation only gets worse should the absent parents pick that moment to appear. (True story; a mother once screamed at me in the middle of the produce aisle because her toddler had flung himself on the floor and was crying. He was crying because I told him not to touch my dog, and then (gently) removed his hand when he touched my dog anyway.)
• Whistling and clicking noises or other dog-calling behavior. Seriously, that's not cool. It's humiliating and irritating and very, very dangerous if they decide to do it to a more critical kind of service dog. Also, there's no way to get in the person's face about it without looking like I'm over-reacting. 
• Barking, from other dogs. My Poodleface is wonderfully behaved, but he's still a dog, and I'm uncomfortable in situations where his self-control is being tested.
• Barking, from other humans. Okay, that's just mean.
• NO DOGS ALLOWED signs. I see one of those and I know there's going to be a confrontation. I get to explain to some under-informed and probably under-paid employee how service dogs are exempt from that rule, and then I get to explain that yes, I'm allowed to have a service dog even though I'm not blind. 
• People who I swear I've never seen before who say I had a long and informative discussion about service dogs with them two months ago. Apparently I'm the only girl in town who goes everywhere with a white poodle and therefore very easy to recognize. 

Also, it's not easy to remember who you've given a speech to if you've given it about five hundred times.

• Mothers who have their babies say "doggie" as I pass.

Okay, I know I'm in the minority on that one because it's happened so many times it MUST be considered normal, but really, it bugs me. What if I was in a wheelchair? Would it still be okay to have a baby say it? 

What irritates me the most about this one is that I don't know how to get them to understand that I don't like it. I've tried just going over to them and saying "Excuse me, I find that offensive. Could you please stop?" But it doesn't work. They just look at me like I've requested something bizarre, or like I'VE said something offensive. Obvious eye rolling or annoyed body language doesn't work either, and neither does irritated sarcasm. It's a situation I don't know how to deal with, but that I'm apparently not supposed to feel I need to deal with. Am I really the only one it bugs?

And, finally, the thing that makes me wince the most,

• People who say, "But an allergy isn't a disability!