On Saturday I got a birthday present in the mail from my Auntie Phil. (She's actually a woman: it's short for Philomena, I think.) It was a box of Texas Chewy Pecan Pralines from Lammes Candies. I love ye olde regional specialty candies -- Lammes has been making pralines since 1885 -- so I was pretty happy to get them. They're an instantly-acquired taste: the first bite establishes a salty-caramel, toffee flavor in your mouth, and after that your taste buds pretty much just scream for another fix.

I ate four out of sixteen, and I went to bed that night patting myself on the back for stopping just short of gluttony.

And when I woke up the next morning I was covered from neck to knee in red spots.

I Googled "allergic to pecans" and found 11,200 hits. My affliction had a name:

Hives.

I found this picture on some health website:


I felt like taking a picture of myself and mailing it to this guy with a note saying, "Hey, dude, you wanna see hives?"

I took a Benadryl. I always keep it in my medicine chest for those times I want to feel like I've been hit by a truck. And I waited. I had two kinds of spots, I discovered: the ones that itched like hell, and the ones that burned. I took another Benadryl. And another.

Worked like a charm. Now I'm too weak to scratch. It's that kind of blitzed where you decide to cut something out of the newspaper and two minutes later realize you've accidentally plunged the scissors into your forehead.

Meanwhile, I'm trying not to play victim, but I'm wondering why I need a prescription to buy vampire contact lenses but I can go to any store and pick up something that'll turn me into a human pincushion. The Italian "sleeping aid" I bought from a dodgy website came with fewer warnings than these Pecan Chewies.

So, I'm taking it easy today. I'm heavily drugged. I feel miserable. Besides, I've got to write up a thank-you note to Auntie Phil. I figure the right message has to be somewhere between, "Those things are abso-freakin'-licious!" and "Thanks for giving me the look of runaway VD without all the bother of sex."