Touched by a Dog

Context: This post is about the last day of my second New York City trip.

Sunday morning marked the last day of our trip, our farewell to 35 Fifth Avenue, and our return to Utah. As Older Sister prepared for church, we prepared for LaGuardia by rolling up the many sleeping bags and sleeping pads, reassembling our gigantic shared suitcase, and, in my case, repacking a pillow/Urban Outfitter bag combination carry-on.

There were three interesting things about the trip home.

Thing #1: We took an Uber to the airport! First time using Uber, everybody. It cost 1/5 of what the taxi had cost. Not a bad deal.

Thing #2: Our layover was in Philly! I've always wanted to go to the City of Brotherly Love. We didn't get to see anything outside of the airport, but at least I ate this Philly roll while there:

Thing #3: I almost died!!!!!1!

The little sisters and I were separated on our flight home. They had seats together; I was all alone. At least, I was all alone for a few minutes until my seatmate boarded.

When you sit next to a stranger on an airplane, you always wonder if your seatmate is going to be, like, your new best friend. It became clear within about fifteen seconds that my seatmate did not want to be my new best friend. She seemed way more interested in shoving a humongous duffel bag under the seat in front of her than in me.

I wondered why she didn't put the duffel bag in the overhead compartment, where it would fit a lot better. I was even more bewildered when she told me that she needed me to move so that she could get the bag under the seat more easily.

As soon I stood up, I got a better look at the bag. It was not a bag. It was a kennel.

All I could say was, "Uhhh..." Because I was surprised to see that a dog would be sitting next to me on an airplane. I guess I assumed that if someone brought a dog onto a plane, the airline would let the other passengers know. Or at least let the person sitting next to the dog (me) know. But this, apparently, was not the case.

"Are you allergic to dogs?" the lady asked.

I said "Yes," which was easier but less accurate than saying, "Sometimes."

As a kid, I got mildly itchy eyes around cats and dogs. Then, when I was a teenager, I stopped reacting. I would go to Etch-a-Sketch's house and be near the her family's pets, or I would go to Best Friend Boy's house and sit on furniture that had cat hair on it, and I would not react at all. I still had to change my clothes as soon as I got home—Mom and Little Brother had allergies so severe that they would get a reaction just from being near someone who'd even looked at a cat or dog recently. I, on the other hand, stayed hale and whole no matter how many canines and felines I looked at or was exposed to.

If I thought I'd outgrown my allergies, though, I assumed too much too soon. When I hit my twenties, I started to react to cats and dogs again...only the reactions were more like Mom's and Little Brother's. My throat would swell up, and I would have a hard time breathing.

The lady said, "My sister is sitting in seat __." She told me that I could trade seats with her sister.

I agreed, mainly because I couldn't see another solution. I walked up the aisle, found the sister, and explained the situation to her. She gave me her seat and with it her seatmate. Hello, possible new best friend. I sat down.

The frustrating thing about having pet allergies is that most people who own pets don't have pet allergies, and people who don't have pet allergies don't really understand the danger their pets might pose to other people. They'll tell you that their pet doesn't shed, or that they always vacuum up all the fur, or something. Unfortunately, that's not really how it works. A person who's allergic to an animal can have an allergic reaction to allergens in animal dandruff or saliva, which is regularly but not only found in fur. Pets who spend time with their owners regularly leave animal dandruff or saliva on said owners. Those owners might, blissfully ignorant, go to a movie theatre and sit in a cushy red chair. If the next person who sits in the cushy red chair has a pet allergy, that person could easily have an allergic reaction to the allergens that the pet owner left behind. And that's just one example. I'm not saying that it's necessarily a pet owner's job to strip their body of allergens whenever they leave the house, but I am saying that most pet owners seem to be totally unaware that it's that easy for their pet's allergens to spread. These owners also seem to be totally unaware that some people have severe enough allergies that they could die if they don't receive treatment quickly enough.

I remembered this too late.

Not long after I sat down, my eyes started itching. And I started thinking about how, if I were a person who had a dog, and if I had that dog with me in an airport during a layover, I would probably play with said dog during said layover. And, if my sister were on said layover at said airport, I would most likely invite said sister to play with me and said dog during said layover at said airport. And then said sister would probably have said dog's fur...and dandruff...and saliva all over her person. And then, if I were a person who owned a dog and had no allergies and therefore was not aware of how allergies work, I might send my allergic-to-dogs seatmate to trade seats with my sister, and then my allergic-to-dogs seatmate would sit right down on the seat covered with traces of dog hair and touch the armrests that bore traces of dandruff and saliva and then...and then...

And then what???

Once, Pepper and I talked about a theoretical series called Touched by a Dog, where people with dog allergies are forced to interact with dogs because the dog owners don't take others' allergies seriously. Unable to reach their medicine in time, these allergic people die tragic and untimely deaths. I felt like this could be a follow-up to Over the Garden Wall; Wirt seems like the kind of person who would be cursed with severe allergies. Each episode would be a PSA written by Wirt as an effort to alert the general public to the plight of the average person with allergies. Wirt would always play the person with the allergy who dies and his brother, Greg, would always play the dog.

We decided early on that one of the episodes would take place on a plane. Because, I theorized, what could be a more unfortunate circumstance than to be stuck on a plane with a dog but no allergy medicine?

I soon discovered just how unfortunate a circumstance it was.

Like I said, I went for years without having any allergic reactions. My mom (who is one of the people who easily could die if she sat in a cushy red seat recently used by a pet owner) carries allergy medicine, inhalers, and EpiPens with her everywhere she goes; I've never felt the need. So I was wholly unprepared for my own personal episode of Touched by a Dog.

"Your eyes aren't really itching," I told myself sternly.

"Your throat isn't really swelling up," I told myself strictly. "You have an overactive imagination."

"You're being ridiculous," I told myself firmly. "Even if you are having an allergic reaction, it's probably very mild, and you will be just fine for this five-hour flight."

At this point, we were about half an hour in. I'd never reacted so quickly after being exposed to an animal before.

I shuddered to think where I would be in five hours.

I was starting to worry.

I needed to take some kind of action.

I definitely couldn't ask my new seatmate for help. Shortly after takeoff, a flight attendant had told us that since the third person in our row hadn't showed, we didn't need to sit right next to each other. Immediately, my seatmate moved to the aisle seat. "I'll make this easier on both of us," she said, but she didn't sound like she was making a joke. She sounded like she didn't like me, and she thought I didn't like her.

Apparently, she would not become my new best friend, either. But that was okay because come to think of it, I had Viola and wasn't really in the market for a new best friend.

I also didn't feel like I could ask the flight attendants for help. I thought that they probably had allergy medicine somewhere, but I had no idea had to handle this kind of social situation. First of all, I have issues with asking people for help because when I ask people for help, I feel like I've failed or done something wrong. Knowing that I didn't have very much experience with my own allergies, that I had no idea what might happen if I didn't get medicine, that I didn't know how severe my reaction might get or how difficult it might become for me to breathe, definitely spurred me to disregard that particular barrier. But on the other hand, I couldn't figure out how to ask the question...logistically. The flight attendants were all coming up and down the aisle with little carts. How could I possibly talk to one? Walk up behind one and say "Can you help me?" in her ear like a creeper? Wait until they came by with the carts and, when they asked me what I wanted to drink, say, "I'd like a ginger ale, and also some allergy medicine if you have it, and please hurry because I am in some kind of respiratory distress?"

No, there was no way. There was no way. I was never going to work up the courage to ask for allergy medicine. Maybe I would be fine, but maybe I wouldn't be. Maybe my throat would keep swelling. If it kept up, I might not be able to breathe. Traditionally, when you're unable to breathe, you die.

What dumb luck! What a stupid way to go.

As is my habit, I started to pray. Sometimes, in situations like this, God tells me to suck it up and get over myself and do the difficult social thing. But sometimes, He provides a path that is more aligned with my personality.

After praying, I had an instant idea. Baby Sister had a cold at the beginning of the trip, remember? My mother the RN gave her a bag of cold medicine to take on the trip. I was pretty sure that I'd seen allergy medicine in there, too. I felt like I should go ask Baby Sister if she had any allergy medicine.

It took me a while to work up the courage to ask my own sister for help. By the time I stepped past my surly seatmate as politely as I could and headed to my sisters' seats, we were an hour and a half into the flight.

I don't remember exactly what I said, but as I was distressed and on the verge of tears it was not particularly eloquent.

Baby Sister said that she didn't think she had any medicine left in her carry-on, allergy or otherwise. "I'll check," she said. She rummaged around and came up with a single adult multi-allergy symptom pill.

Hallelujah.

I took the pill back to my seat. All I needed was some liquid to wash the pill down, and everything would be fine. Luckily, the flight attendants were still (slowly) making their trips with the little carts.

A flight attendant with a cart soon came. I was all geared up to order my ginger ale, but this flight attendant only had biscotti. There was another cart still coming with the drinks.

I choked down the biscotti. Traditionally, biscotti are dry, but these ones seemed particularly hard to swallow. I hoped it was just my imagination and not a symptom of my swelling throat.

I waited for the drink cart...and waited. About half an hour had passed since I'd gotten the allergy pill from Baby Sister.

The only thing I could think of that would be sadder than dying of allergies on a plane because I wouldn't ask for allergy medicine would be dying of allergies on a plane while holding an allergy pill in my hand.

I swallowed, checking the tightness of my throat. Should I try to take the pill without liquid? Plot twist: I choke to death on the pill. Maybe that was a bad plan.

Just as I was about to panic, the drink cart finally showed up. I finally got my ginger ale. I stuffed the pill in my mouth and washed it down into my esophagus. Within five minutes, my throat had loosened, and my eyes were no longer itching. The rest of the flight passed without event.

And so I returned to Utah safe and sound.

Thus ended my second New York City trip. Like I said in the post before this one, I don't know if I should hope I'll have time for more travel or if I should hope to have other preoccupations. But either way, Older Sister has made an executive decision that she's not coming home to Utah at the end of the summer; she's going to stay in New York if she can find a job. So even if I find myself with other life commitments, I may still have to go back if I want to see my sister. We'll see what happens.