2003-05-31 - 9:24 p.m.

There are times I think I�m totally brain-dead.

So I�m driving down to the Letterboxing Gathering. I�m all excited and really looking forward to it. I have the directions from Mapquest and I�m tooling along happily. The park, Riverbend, is in Great Falls, so it�s about an hour drive. It�s beyond Tyson�s Corner Mall! So I have the window open, I�m singing along with the radio and just having a great time. It�s raining off and on and I only roll up the window when the rain starts dripping in.

When I�m � of the way there, I had a terrible coughing fit. I coughed hard enough to actually gag (I hate cagging) and tear were running down my face. Truly attractive. You should really see it, I would have been crowned Miss America. Anyway, I grabbed a drink, thinking I had something in my throat, right? So I chug my drink and that quiets me for a while.

All during the Gathering and subsequent picnic, I had periods where I was coughing violently and having a hard time getting a good breath. I put it off to pollen and the weather change (rainy, sunny, rainy, windy, sunny�) and tried to just go on with the stamp exchanges and enjoy the time there. After all was said and done, there was a small group that was going out for a just planted letterbox. So I joined them, though I was wearing sandals and it was really too muddy for me. The path wasn�t too mucky, and I was able to find �Final Exam� without slipping or killing myself.

After I stamped and everything, they were going to go on to another box, but I really had to go to the loo and I was ready to head home. So I said bye and headed back up the path. Halfway back, I had to stop because of another coughing fit and funny wheezy breathing session. I was really pissed, because I was thinking it was the stupid weather. It had given me a monstrous migraine just this morning. I got to the car and it finally dawned on me.

Hello? It�s called ASTHMA!!!

What a lunkhead I am. I�m going around, wheezing and coughing and I don�t recognize it as my asthma acting up?? Can we say �duh�? Honestly. I got in the car and took some medication out, just in case it got really raw. I can�t believe how thickheaded I can be.

I ended up at Tyson�s anyway, since I had a gift card for Hecht�s. They were having a sale anyway. But in the air-conditioned, cool mall, I wasn�t having breathing fits, so I used up the whole card, popped back in the car and used the A/C the rest of the way home.

I wonder about my brain sometimes. Like�do I have one?

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