I’ve never much liked nature. 

Now, don’t get me wrong, I like the concept of nature. The rushing waterfalls, the serene pastural settings so elegantly painted by the masters, the cute, little animals scurrying to and fro. Bambi’s Thumper, I can get behind that. Nature, harnessed by an artist, put behind glass or imagined abstractly; nature’s beautiful. Until I step outside. 

I’ve never thought of my allergies as a big deal. Sure, my peanut allergy has caused an emergency room visit here or there, and my father used to pick me up from sleepovers at friends’ houses due to my emphysema-like wheezing around cats. No big thing, right? But, as she is inclined to do, especially when it comes to issues of health, my mom insisted that I see an allergy specialist.

I found myself shirtless, laying on my stomach in the doctor’s examination room with 20 pricks in my back. (Which is not nearly as scandalous as it sounds). A constant tingle runs through my body but all I can think about is how comedically small the exam room table appears under my enormous body. I am most certainly not allergic to pizza and beer.

In order to administer an allergy test a nurse must prick your back with an assortment of allergens. Different types of trees, animal dander, molds and grasses are all made to come into contact with your delicate, nature-hating skin. From then on it’s a waiting game to see if your torso turns into a red and puffy Braille haiku. 

[haiku about allergies]

About 20 minutes later the nurse finally knocks on the door, seeking permission to come back into the room. I couldn’t see the expression on her face given my vulnerable position facing the corner, like the bad kid being punished. But her inflection said it all. 

“Oh my!” the nurse said in that heavy Minnesota accent most of us think we don’t have. “Well,” she said with a pause, “you’re allergic to everything!”

“Everything?” I ask, worried less about the consequences of allergies and more about the cocky “told you so” attitude my girlfriend was sure to have upon hearing the news.

“Well, maybe not the ….. yes, yes, you’re allergic to grass too.”

I kind of guessed that one. My parents love to tell the story of when I was just a child and had started to crawl. My dad spent a summer building a deck behind our house and was able to leave me relatively unsupervised, as long as I was surrounded by grass. Sitting upon a pastel pink and cream-colored blanket I was content as all get-out not to traverse the sea of green, spiky irritants. I’ve always been confused when someone appears pleasant while barefoot. I guess that’s why I identify with the wide-eyed technological visions of the 1950s. Their promise was one of control, of harnessing nature rather than being one with it. Domed cities, meal pills… science will have the answers.