Monday, January 19, 2009

This Plant Is Evil!

My friends, this is Juniperus ashei, commonly known as the mountain cedar, and it is EVIL!

Allow me to explain why. Previous to moving to Texas, I had no known allergies. Nothing. I was invincible to anything nature decided to throw at me. But last year I had some itchy eyes, and was trying to figure out the cause, and the doctor told me it was probably a cedar allergy. I got some eye drops, used them once, and I was completely fine.

However, now, for the last two months, I've woken up really congested. (Ashley can tell you that the process of me becoming decongested is not pretty.) And today, I woke up with bad congestion and my eyes have itched all day, with no help from the magical eyedrops. I suppose they did expire in September, but still... Nothing. Worse, Ashley hardly slept at all and has much worse symptoms than me. She was sneezing like crazy early in the morning, and feels a lot crappier than I do.

I never pay attention to the allergy forecast on the news, but today had me curious, and so I looked. The cedar pollen level is at 18,330. To put that in perspective, cedar is considered "Very High" when it's above 1,500. So currently we're dealing with 1200% of what's considered "Very High." That sucks. I don't like it one bit. And therefore, I have a request to make of everyone.

If you see a tree like the one above, burn it. Burn it, and burn all its friends, and salt the earth so that nothing can ever grow there again.

P.S. What makes this situation even more gross is that fact that the pollen that's infesting my breathing air is basically tree sperm. That's nasty - you trees need to keep your reproductive systems to yourselves, or at least outsource to the bees instead of the entire freaking atmosphere.

P.P.S. Here's a video of the mountain cedar pollinating, so you can see what I'm talking about: