Duck Lips

It was in Cube City, many years ago, that I discovered I was allergic to Rice Krispies.

I was sitting at my desk, typing away on the computer and enjoying a homemade Rice Krispies square, when it happened.

My lips suddenly started to tingle, and I felt intense and painful swelling. Luckily, it was the end of the work day, so I shut down my computer and ducked out the door. When I got to the car and looked into the rear view mirror, I freaked out: I had duck lips!

I drove home and feverishly did Internet searches for lip swelling. I freaked myself out with possible diagnoses from various message boards and sites that weren't exactly reputable. I thought about going to the ER, but that would have been frustrating, humiliating, time consuming, and costly. So I called my nursing friend who specialized in cardiology. In nursing school, she had sent me very entertaining and detailed diagrams of things she was learning, like how to divide the butt into four quadrants before determining where to give a shot. She knew everything, and she would know how to help me.

She sent me to the store for Benedryl. I was sporting a full-on duck beak at this point, so it wasn't exactly fun for me to be parading around in public. I had wrapped a scarf around my face, which would've been less suspicious if it hadn't been August in Texas.

When the Benedryl didn't work, I called my nurse friend back. She suggested lip balm with SPF of at least 15. She said the higher the SPF, the better it would work -- and it would only work IF the lip balm contained SPF. I had some of this lip balm at home, so I used it...and it worked! Nurses are so cool.

Unfortunately, I had no idea at this point that I was allergic to Rice Krispies. The next day, as I was getting ready for work, I enjoyed a bowl of Rice Krispies. DUCK LIP ALERT! I tried the lip balm with SPF again. It didn't work! So I took the Benedryl again, waited, and found that it didn't work. I followed up with the lip balm once again...and it worked! Weird. I headed off to Cube City armed with very little confidence, Benedryl, lip balm with SPF, and no Rice Krispies. I must have applied the lip balm and swallowed Benedryl a million times that day in my paranoia about the return of duck lips. These are the types of things, after all, that our fellow cube dwellers live for: To see each other get totally humiliated by things we can't control.

So this is a shout out to my cardiology nurse friend for helping me get rid of duck lips. Now, if only we could find a remedy for the painful swelling caused by a lifetime of working in Cube City.