For as long as I can remember, every March the planet has tried to kill me. Spring would arrive and every singing bird meant doom, each bud promised pain, discomfort, a lack of breath … then it would all bloom and exceed my fears.

Spring would gift me a cough, a runny nose, swollen bloodshot eyes (from rubbing them), and pollen seemed to see pinto my blood, thickening it to molasses, running me down, altering my reality in what I only later discovered was similar to being high. It reduced me to a reading machine, which I didn’t mind at all.

But this year every symptom has turned ominous, and morphs into a clear indication that I have COVID-19. The paranoia has gotten so bad that my wife, the goddess, the archangel of common sense, took my temperature three times in one day – all of them normal. We looked up Coronavirus symptoms repeatedly, just to check, and each time my perennial allergies did not add up to this hot new disease.

Why are we so paranoid? The media saturation has got to be one factor. I was so obsessed for awhile not only would I read local and national and global updates but I would send them to loved ones, definitely making me their favorite person.

Common sense won out after about five episodes of subtle, tense, controlled hysteria, and I am confident what I have are allergies,

Most probably.

If I am not sure tomorrow, I’ll panic.

Here we go again, and that is the underreported side effect of this phenomenon – the novelty is wearing off and underneath it is all worry and fear.

It only gets weirder from here, folks. Cut yourselves some slack, go for a walk, talk it out with a trusted spouse or friend, grab a book, music, whatever helps you chill.