Someday I want to make a webcomic out of last year's trip to the ER.

Phoenix Metro is a lousy place to live if you enjoy breathing. Sooner or later, you're going to get a lung fungus. The irony is that my family moved here because my great-uncle had asthma, and I'd dearly love to move away from here because now I do too.

I've never seen a summer like this past one before. It stormed but it didn't rain. Instead we had these monstrous dust storms called haboobs. They are, unlike most boobs, not fun.

Somewhere along the line, my girlfriend lost the ability to breathe comfortably. Finally she went to urgent care; they diagnosed her with pneumonia, gave her some steroids and antibiotics, and sent her home.

Well, the steroids made her hyperventilate, so we spent the next day in the ER. They told us it wasn't pneumonia and prescribed less harsh steroids.

Well, those steroids were still too harsh, and within a couple of days she was hyperventilating again and we had to call the paramedics. We managed to avoid another trip to the ER and she went off her prescriptions.

Since then, she's seen a couple specialists who appear to know what the fuck they're talking about. They told her it was a bad allergy to dust and we'd have to tear our carpets out.

So we spent this past weekend taking all the furniture out of all the bedrooms. It's kinda like moving, except instead of begging to borrow your friend's pickup you just move all your shit to your back porch.

Well, the floor guys were about 5 hours late today. So that's, you know, one whole day's worth of moving shit back into the house lost. Which gave us time for the power to go out in half our house. Second time in about 36 hours.

It was about this point that I decided I needed a beer.

The electrician told us that our transformer must be going out and the electric company would have to come out. In the meantime he hooked the other half of the house up to the same circuit as the functioning half of the house, so that the floor guys would be able to see things.

It was about this point that I decided fuck it, Halloween, you know I love you, but I am not dressing up this year; my house is mostly-disassembled and I was just going to reuse last year's Axe Cop costume anyway. Which is like a regular cop costume, but with an axe.

It was not much later that I decided I needed another beer.

The second beer exploded on me.

So I am currently sitting in my kitchen with a laptop; the flood of Trick-or-Treaters has dwindled to the point that I can finally bang out this post. My house is full of choking, eye-searing dust --

At this point in the story the dust got so bad I went outside. I gave candy to trick-or-treaters until people from the power company told me they were taking the power out. So, guess I'll wrap this and unplug my router.

Happy Halloween!

...was going to be the end of my post, but before I could get to the Post button the power went out. The floor guys, obviously, will not be finishing tonight.

I am currently at my grandparents' house. First thing I did was get a glass of water. Continuing the evening's theme, the dispenser did not turn off when I was done with it, and for the second time tonight I found myself toweling up a spilled beverage.

Well, happy Halloween.

To be continued? God, I sure hope not.

Oh, and also I've got company coming on Friday. Good times.

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