Ah, pollen season. That special time of year when the glorious temperatures that we Floridians finally get to experience are ruined by a rain of tiny particles that clog our eyes, stuff up our lungs and generally cover the world in a thick film of yellow crud. Thanks, flowers! But pollen provides many benefits, and I’m not just talking about the very necessary pollination effect, which I would describe in great scientific detail … if I had any clue what that was.
So, instead I want to expound upon the virtues of pollen season by offering some of the many important upsides that come with the so-called “pollenpocalypse.”
• It gives you the chance to try out a yellow car. Yellow is a funny color. Some people love it and some people hate it. For those, however, who have always thought, “I wonder if I would look terribly sexy in a yellow car,” here’s your chance to try with no strings attached. How often do you get an opportunity like that? And of course the answer is going to be, “Hell no, you don’t look sexy! You look like you’re driving a dirty banana!” But at least you will know and won’t have dropped big bucks to realize the only thing yellow does well is make you look jaundiced. And that is not a sexy look!
• You get to leaf blow your front porch 30 times a day. Who doesn’t want to do that? It becomes like a video game. Blow over here. Blow over there. Don’t let it collect. Make sure you don’t blow away the cat. Ooops, you just blew over your wife’s flowers in the fancy pot you received as a wedding present. Extra points if you can blow all the pieces off the porch and she never notices. See? Super fun!
• It gives you a good come-back when your up-north friends complain about the latest polar vortex that dumped 50 inches of snow. “Whoop-de-do!” you can tell them. “We’ve had 82 inches of pollen and my lungs feel like I’ve inhaled a bag of gravel and I have a pollen-induced rash in the shape of Alfred Hitchcock. So, let’s just keep it in perspective here!”
• When the oak and other stringy tree pollen starts falling and getting all over you, it can be a great ice-breaker in morning meetings: “Hey, Ted, I think you might have some poop or maybe a worm dangling from your hair.” Between all the pointing, laughter, shuffling to get away and general disgust, it’s a great way to liven up a stiff crowd.
• It offers the dog an opportunity to play practical jokes. Because, you know how much dogs love to play practical jokes! And roll in the grass, especially when there is a lot of stringy, yellow-stained oak mash piled up out there. And especially when it has just rained and it is now more of a mush or pollen putty. And most especially if the dog thinks tracking it all over the house and rubbing up against the sofa and then emerging at the dinner table where someone screams, “AHHH!!! She rolled in poop … or maybe some worms!!!” sounds funny, as most dogs do.
Oh, the joys of pollen season. Too bad it only comes around once a year.