Cats: 1, Herbie: 0

So good friend and coworker, Jason, is moving away soon. This weekend he hosted his "come drink all my alcohol so I don't have to move it" party. Jason and his girlfriend Lilah have a couple of cats, which Kimberley is very allergic to, and I'm mildly allergic to.

Or so I thought.

I was so worried about how Kim would fare, I didn't really consider my own circumstances. She took her Allegra, I didn't take anything. We arrived, we drank, we talked, laughed, and watched USC vs. Virginia Tech football. I kept asking her how she was feeling.

About the 3rd quarter, I notice I'm having a lot of trouble breathing. Like the full on wheezing, labored inhaling type of breathing. Like full-on allergic reaction breathing. Yikes. We finish our cocktails and try to make a polite exit, but by the time I hit the street I know this isn't going to go away 5 minutes after I'm out the door like it usually does when I'm only around cats for a few minutes. (This exposure was quite a bit longer.)

Swing by the grocery on the way to dinner and get some Benadryl and briefly consider the "Avoid Alcoholic Beverages" warning, weighing the consequences of mixing diphenhadramine and 3 rum & cokes versus the growing respiratory distress I was in, I decided to go for the pill. If "alcohol may intensify drowsiness" is the worst consequence, I'll take it if it means I can breathe. (The 3 M.D.'s in my family are probably going apeshit reading this...) Dinner at Aesop's Tables is (medically) unenventful, and we make it home and retire to bed (after carefully depositing all the clothes we wore in the garage...). Had a little more trouble breathing in the middle of the night, but nothing terrible.

Woke up Sunday morning to the WORST feeling set of lungs since I had Bronchitis as a kid. Spent a good portion of the day knocking the crap out of my lungs and feeling exactly as you'd expect when you're not processing oxygen through your lungs as efficiently as normal, all the while trying to car-shop with Kimberley, who refuses to acknowledge the current state of her 3rd Volvo 240. (Kimberley and Car Shopping is at the very least a blog entry of its own, if not the subject of scholarly essays on "Inability to Spend Money, Even When Required"). Ugh.

Well, I've recovered, but I've learned my lesson. I now consider myself more than "mildly allergic" to cats, which is my only allergy I'm aware of to acknowledge at all...

So score that one: Cats: 1, Herbie: 0.