Happy autumn, Hawkeyes!
As the midterm season winds down, I am able to admire the actual season as it hits Iowa City. That crisp fall scent is in the chilly breeze, the leaves are tinted russet, and paper ghosts are haunting storefronts. Though my enjoyment of October is evident now, the beginning of the month did start off a bit rough for me.
After four years of high school German classes, I have a personal commitment to celebrating Oktoberfest (or at least the American version of it). So I of course jumped at the opportunity to go to Amana Colonies–a quaint, old-timey village with rich ties to German history and culture–with some friends from my dorm floor. One of our first stops was at a bakery, where I bought a “monster cookie” that truly lived up to its devilish name.
I almost always carry an Epi Pen and Benadryl in my backpack because I have a nut allergy. However, our group of five was already crammed tightly in my friend’s car without the addition of another bulky bag, so I opted for a small purse with my wallet and a couple of other bare essentials. The most glaring essential that was missing was the Epi Pen and Benadryl. This real-world foreshadowing was unintentional on my part.
I asked two employees if the cookie had nuts (as is routine for those with an allergy) and, reassured by two “no’s,” I happily bit into the giant, M&M-speckled dessert…
Almost instantly, my taste buds set off alarms, a spell of knowing dread prickling down my spine, and the ominous itch forming in my throat. I rushed back inside the store and asked again if the cookie contained nuts. The shocking plot twist: the cookie “did not contain nuts, only peanut butter.”
I consider myself to have a milder allergy, but that’s when I have Benadryl with me. I have never not had Benadryl with me during a reaction. Little did I know how powerful an opponent this peanut monster could be, “the creature from the black legume.”
Amana’s charming old-fashionedness suddenly became its greatest problem. There were no pharmacies that had the kind of medicine I needed. The closest alternative was a Casey’s several blocks away. At this point, though, I was more embarrassed than worried. I had planned this outing for my friends, and now I was disrupting it because of a cookie. I could hear the faint tunes of the festivities beginning in the opposite direction of the Caseys, and I told them they could go without me while I quickly resolved this minor inconvenience. Let it be a testament to how loyal friends they are for refusing, especially since we’ve only known each other for a couple of months.
As I booked it down the sidewalk, chugging as much water as I could along the way, the “minor inconvenience” was becoming increasingly less minor. The devastating reveal, once I finally burst through the doors of the Caseys’, was that they had no Benadryl, only children’s seasonal allergy medicine. I doubted it would be effective enough, but an antihistamine was an antihistamine. I downed the plastic shot of tangy medicine in a way that would make most Germans proud. Though, as I suspected, it didn’t alleviate the symptoms.
I stood outside in the grass, bent over as vomit violently exploded out of my mouth and nose, stinging my throat and clogging my airway. I was between the distant parade of Oktoberfest and a cemetery that was next to Casey’s, which was a strangely symbolic setting now that I think about it. My friends (who are somehow still my friends after this) patiently waited until the final wave of bile passed, when I insisted we return to Amana and continue our day as if this hadn’t happened.
My throat remained scratchy, and my eyes were still slightly blurry with water, but I thought the worst of it was over. I soon found out I was wrong.
We were browsing a local shop when the pink welts appeared on my body and demanded I scratch them until the skin was raw. As I frantically ran my nails along the swollen hives, my vision began to darken. Losing the strength to walk on my own, and with the nausea reemerging in my stomach, I had my friends lead me out of the store. I threw up in the grass for a little while longer, my sight reduced to an inky pool of black with swirls of purple.
I was practically carried into the backseat of my friend’s car before we sped down the road to a nearby Walgreens in Cedar Rapids. At long last, I had the divine antidote that is Benadryl. Within two minutes of taking it, the allergic reaction stopped. The switch was turned off, and I felt a kind of relief I had never had before.
I insisted–again–that we go back to Amana and try this for the third time. Fortunately for us, the third time really is the charm. We did some shopping and ate a heavy schnitzel dinner, which I think we all needed, given the stress of the day. I got a refund from that bakery, though the staff was very reluctant to return my $5.34 (I guess, even with inflation, a human life is only worth $5.33).
Suffice it to say, this was not my most wunderbar Oktoberfest, considering the pressure I put on my friends and the heart attacks I nearly gave my parents when I called them about this. Yet it would be unrealistic to expect my college experience to be all joyous moments. I can appreciate the beauty of this season even more because of the not-so-beautiful features of it.
Until next time!
