Never a Dull Moment

Yeah, wine and cheese night, right? That sounds pretty tame. It started off pretty good. I had even sewn a button back onto an awesome shirt. I don't know how to sew, but the internet fixed that, and out of curiosity I even found out what a thimble is for--apparently its more than a monopoly piece. So I bought some wine called Snoqualmie. I did this because being a person whose knowledge of cheese consists entirely of the options at Subway I thought it would be safer to bring a bottle of wine, and Snoqualmie is the name of a skiing mountain out here. Made perfect sense in my head.

Anyway, I had a bit of a cough today. It became a serious problem at the wine and cheese party. As I sat on the couch in my awesome and recently repaired shirt, it became harder and harder to breathe without coughing. After all I didn't want people to think I had swine flu, and I really didn't want to gross people out because I'd only had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for dinner and was helping myself to the ritz and cheddar plate quite frequently. It was becoming more and more difficult to avoid coughing, though, and my shirt seemed to get tighter and tighter. Eventually it became unbearable to the point where I was trying to hold my breath even as my chest convulsed, inadvertently making vocal sounds as air trespassed through my vocal chords. I excused myself and headed home, erupting into a fit of coughing as soon as I was out of earshot.

It was then, as I stumbled back to my car, that I realized that my "cough" was actually an asthma attack. That strange feeling of being unable to breathe was caused by actually not being able to breathe. That explained a lot. So then I had to race home to my over the counter inhaler and then recovered in front of the tv with some videogames, trying to not to think about how that played off to all the wine and cheesers back there. I rarely get asthma attacks, so there is a good chance that it was set off by the wine, which, if true, leads me to the devastating conclusion that there may be some wines out there that I'm allergic to. Its bad enough to be allergic to hard cider and half of the beer brands out there, but to also be allergic to wine...thats just lame. Now I have to buy another bottle of Snoqualmie and drink it just to find out.

This reminds me: if you've ever seen a character in a movie with "asthma" you've probably seen some geeky, nervous kid that always takes a little huff of his trusty inhaler whenever he gets a little upset. Well, thats bullshit. In the real world asthma is serious case of being unable to breathe. Its not the paper bag hyperventilation thing; its basically you getting choked by your own lungs. So those people in movies like Hitch that just sort of decide to move on from their asthma by tossing their inhaler would actually end up dead or in the ER. Ironically, the panic attack people with the hyperventilation...you can really just let them pass out and they'll be fine. Probably need a nap anyway.

I think I'm going to have to buy another inhaler and keep it in my car, like the emergency med kit in James Bond's car in Casino Royale. Then I can just run to my car next time. All I need is someone to call who has a British accent. Oh, and if you think my obsession with James Bond is retarded, or getting old, read this section of wikipedia.