Whining...

Or, in this case, "wine-ing," as in a post about wine, but that doesn't look very good on the title. It makes it look like I spelled it incorrectly and I pride myself on grammar and spelling.

It's a very sad day today as I realized I've developed an allergy to wine, specifically Virgin Vines Shiraz. For the last few months, I've consumed a fair amount of this wine because I found it on sale at the wine store. Subsequently, for the last few months, I've broken out in unexplainable hives.

After a particularly nasty bout with hives a couple of months ago, I went to a dermatologist thoroughly convinced (after consulting Web M.D. and self-diagnosing) that I needed treatment for scabies. I made them give me scabies medication, not because I believe I am a dirty scabies girl, but because there simply wasn't any other explanation. Web M.D. said I had scabies, I had scabies! I figured that maybe my feather bed I bought last winter was the culprit and that wayward scabies had hijacked their way into my bedroom. (Think recent "deadly spider found in Whole Foods bananas" story.) Incidentally, the scabies medication didn't help or do anything, but it was still nice to know that I was scabies-free. My next thought was perhaps scurvy, but I eat oranges. And I'm not a pirate.

At work today, I had an out-of-the-blue "a ha!" moment when I figured out that my current few hives began Friday night after I drank a couple of glasses of Virgin Vines Shiraz. I didn't down the whole bottle, as I'm known to occasionally do, which is why I have just a few hives. I thought maybe I got caught in some freak pre-summer, zero-humidity megamosquito attack while enjoying some time outside, but now I think it was the shiraz. Then I came home and found this about wine allergies, "The symptoms of a sulfite sensitivity reaction vary from mild to life-threatening. The most common symptoms are mild and involve a skin rash accompanied by redness, hives, itching, flushing, tingling and swelling." Yep, that's me.

Damn you, dirty shiraz. Why must you taunt me so? So, now what do I do? Further test this allergy theory by drinking my last bottle of Virgin Vines "just to make sure" I'm really allergic? Pawn it off on someone who isn't destined to never again drink shiraz? Get tested again for scabies?

Damn you, sulfites. Damn you, Richard Branson.