Today at Ask A Manager, there is a question about a scented product. As someone who is allergic to almost everything under the sun, it was of keen interest to me. At Ask A Manager, she asks that we take the letter writer at their word. That doesn’t mean we can’t question the LW about their perception, but we are to accept that what they write is true to them. I think this is fair. What I’ve noticed, though, is that a good writer can slant things completely in their direction (whether they mean to or not).
In this case, notice the description of Jane and how the LW leans on the fact that she thinks Jane is having a tantrum (basically). I’ll get to that in a minute, but first, more about me.
I am allergic to everything under the sun. I was recently lamenting on Twitter as to how all I want are unscented (but I mean fragrance-free) products. They are so fucking hard to find and, no, ‘spring rain’ is not an acceptable substitute. One of the worst reactions I’ve ever had was to a Febreze scent called Spring Rain or something like that. I was trying to mask the smell of cat piss, and I figured that would be the closest to nature that I could get. I sprayed it and I could not breathe. I ran from the hallway and opened up all the windows in the house. I was gagging for the next hour.
Another example was that my brother recently got into essential oils. He carries bottles of them with him and sniffs them to calm himself down. He thrust a bottle at me once and told me to smell it. Like an idiot, I did. I said like an idiot because I knew it was going to be something that
I would be allergic to.
When I was a kid, I got allergy shots every week. I didn’t know why; I just knew they made me miserable. I’d get the shot, sit for half an hour while my arm swelled up like a balloon, and then was allowed to leave. This happened every week until suddenly, it stopped.
It wasn’t until much later than I realized (when I was able to Google it) that they were injecting me with whatever I was allergic to in order to try to desensitize me. They probably stopped when it didn’t work. It never got smaller. My arm just stayed swollen for the whole half hour before we left. Any time I got the dreaded allergen test, it was thirty or so dots on my thigh. All of them would swell until it was one huge swollen bubble. I cannot tell you how awful that made me feel and how much I dreaded it.
Back to my brother’s bottle of poison, er essential oil. I unthinkingly smelled it. My head snapped back, and I’m sure I grimaced as I thrust the bottle back at my brother. It was lavender, which was something I was most decidedly allergic to. Had I known it was lavender, I would not have smelled it at all. I don’t care how natural it is, it’s terrible to me.