Tomorrow, in nine hours to be precise (yes, I’m in a weird time zone), I’ll get to, for one day, exchange my regular piece-of-shit part-time job for a day of sweet heavenly bliss working at my friendly local public library. I’m currently in library school, and I spent January working there as part of my training. It was the most fun I’ve ever had with my pants on, and I’ve been missing it like crazy since then. Today, they called me up, said they were a bit short on staff, and asked me if I’d like to come in and work for a day. Oh boy! Do you know what this means? It means they like me! It’s a foot in the door! If I don’t screw up, more work may well be forthcoming! And I’ll actually get paid to have fun!
However - yes, there’s always that “however”, isn’t there - five hours ago, I popped down to the thai food place everyone had been recommending and ordered up some nice fried shrimp with noodles, to celebrate my good luck.
Little did I know they fry their stuff in peanut oil.
Yes, I’m allergic. Not so bad that it might kill me or anything, but bad enough that, say, a Snickers bar would fuck me up good enough that I would probably be begging to be shot before long. I had one mouthful of shrimp, and within about four seconds I knew I was in deep shit. Right now, the worst part is over, I hope. At least I’m well enough to type. Over the past few hours, I’ve been going through nausea, shivering, having my hands, face and mouth swell up like a fugu, seeing my entire body go red like a tomato, itching all over, having my guts inflate like an airship with the subsequent discharge from all bodily openings of foul-smelling funkiness potent enough to kill the local birdlife, weird feverish hallucinations, twelve different kinds of intestinal pain, bizarre mystical experiences of the divine, and general crappiness.
But fuck it - I’m *not *going to call the library and tell them I’m sick. This is one sweet opportunity. I’ll be there, with fucking bells on, even if I’ll be needing a damned wheelchair and extra oxygen.
Well. Wish me luck.
I mean that in the most loving way possible, of course. But Thai food is pretty much synonymous with peanuts, these days. Of course, if it was your first Thai experience, you might not have known that. But yeah, Thai is off limits for you - even if you find one of the 5% of dishes without peanut sauce, ground peanuts or peanut oil, chances are there is peanut residue all over the kitchens, no matter how clean they try to keep it.