Season of the Cloat

It's Cloat-ing season, baby! For those of you that don't know, a Cloat (cloating) verb, is a word that was created by my college roommate of three years, Caitling Greatling. Caitlin coined this phrase when she was awoken in her sleep many a night, to hear me making horrifying sounds with my throat. Cloat stands for Clearing of the Throat. It is an involuntary throat action that I have virtually no control over, as it usually occurs when I am not awake. It is my actual worst fear that I will cloat while I am sharing my bed with someone else. Note: The sound that the cloat makes has been compared to that of an exorcism being performed.

Cloating is a way for me to relieve my allergy symptoms. It is not easy being a spring time allergy sufferer. Sneezing, itchy eyes and throat, and the worst part is; it's spring! All I want to do is be outside and be one with nature. However, unfortunately for me, I am allergic to the great outdoors, amongst others. I've been dealt a bad allergy hand, (as seasonal allergies is not where my list stops). I am also allergic to CATS (yuck) and dogs too. (An aside: My friend Derek once said that the reason that he has two cats at his apartment is to keep me away. Sweet, right?)
Each time that I go to Derek's apartment, I actually want to hurl his cats right out the window. Because well, I hate cats, and secondly, I enjoy breathing, and can't seem to do that in his cats' presence. Most recently, when I was at Derek's apartment for a pregame in honor of his birthday, WALTER (his cat) made his home inside my jacket. Oh goody!

I'm allergic to seasons, pollen, dogs, cats, (I'm a huge nerd, I know). And, we can't forget my deadly allergies! Bees, wasps, and whore-nets. I would also like to point out that someone else quite close to me has all these same allergies, I call him dad. So, well...Thanks Dad!

In the summer of 2006, I worked with seven other counselors to help "train" eighty sixteen year old guys and girls to become future counselors at Camp Schodack. It was the actual best summer of my life, and I'll love it forever. It was Becky, Amelia and I (FAB), and we worked with da boyzz. Derek, Perlman, Mags, Carter and Jay. These boys were such BOYS. Each one of them had an unbelievable sense of humor, and they were constantly playing pranks on everyone around them. What this meant is that together, the eight of us had the best summer of our lives, and got paid the big bucks to laugh, cheer, shimmy (and make fun of me).

It was during one of our very busy times as LT Staff, (aka...we were hanging out together, not teaching anyone how to be a counselor), when seemingly out of nowhere a bee crawled up my leg and stung me. At this point in time, I knew that I was allergic to bees, but would not find out until later to what extent. Up until this point, I had only been stung a couple of times prior, and my reaction had been severe swelling. When I was eleven, I got stung right on my chest. I was so proud. I walked around with one big boob, (until the swelling went down), and I liked it.

Within a half hour of being stung, I was having a full anaphylactic reaction. I looked similar to Will Smith in Hitch. There was literally no distinction between my head and my neck. (They were one). I was itchy everywhere, and oh yes. My throat was beginning to close. I was in the camp nurse's office, and it was becoming increasingly clearer to me that I would need to be epi-penned. Help! I was scared!

The nurse that summer was named Helen, nicknamed by camp, Crazy H. Would you want a woman named CRAZY H jabbing a six inch needle into your upper thigh? No. I didn't think so. Just before Crazy H stabbed me in the leg, she began to fiddle with the epi-pen. She looked at me ( as tears streamed down my face--hey, it was REALLY scary). She looked at Amelia, who was sitting next to me, rubbing my back, Crazy H said..."I've never done this before, I'm nervous!" Had it not been for Amelia taking charge and giving Crazy H instructions on how to epi-pen the shit out of me, I may not have been here to write this blog today! (Thanks Meelzybabe!) After you are epi-penned,(by law),an ambulance has to come. Within minutes, I was a celebrity around camp, and rumors of what had happened to me ran rampant across camp.

What was the outcome of this tale? Well. For starters, I began weekly allergy shots, and carry an epi-pen with me where ever I go. And, the five male counselors that I worked with took it upon themselves to take part in a dare. Someone had to lick the wasp that almost killed me. In the end, it was Perlman who came face first with that fuzzy wasp.
And from that day forward, cries of "I shot epi-penning Fisher" could be heard across the camp.

The End.