The Yellow Cars of Georgia

You don't live down here without knowing what a Neti pot is. I can't get over how bad the pollen is in the South. As of last week, all of the cars in Atlanta were coated with a thick layer of yellow stuff. I'd walk up to my car to get into it, and I could literally blow pollen off the trunk lid. There was so much of it that I didn't want to touch my door handles! And I park in a garage.

It's a strange sight to see people using their windshield wipers to clear the pollen off— as if it were snow. Getting the stuff off your car is impossible. It keeps coming back. It reminds me of how cars look in the Northeast after a big snow when they're filthy from the road salt and dirty snow.

Yesterday I couldn't take it anymore. I had a free coupon for a $12.95 car wash, so I used it. I knew the line would be long, but the wait wasn't too bad because there were about 20 people working there. When my car came out, it was blue again. I was ecstatic to be able to touch the door handles. I felt squeaky clean, like I'd just had a long shower.

So I put the top down, (only temporarily, because you don't want the pollen inside your car too), and I drove to my brother Dave's for a dinner party—at which one of the big topics of conversation was, you guessed it—allergies. By the time I left that evening to come home, the first light coat of yellow was already on the car.

Walking around in sandals in Dave's heavily wooded back yard yesterday, I came back to the house with yellow toenails (previously painted red), yellow feet, and yellow shoes (inside and out). After sitting on a porch swing, my jeans were coated with the stuff. Puffs of yellow smoke emanated from the denim as I slapped away the pollen.

My poor sister-in-law Judy is really suffering because of her allergies. In fact, "pollen count" actually makes the news here. They've been talking about it on the news for at least a week now, saying this will last another month. A bad day is a pollen count of 1,500 particulates per cubic meter. Last Wednesday, that number topped 5,000. We had a temporary reprieve on Thursday when it rained, but the pollen is back in full force now.

See the MSNBC Video: In South, worst pollen in years, where the "run" on allergy medicine is causing pharmacies to restock their shelves daily.