WHERE'S THE BERLITZ COURSE TO LEARN HOW TO SPEAK ACRONYM?
By Patricia Misiuk

Have you noticed lately we're communicating in acronyms, not words? Television ads, those 30-second sound bytes, persuade us to buy antacids for GERD, inhalers to offset COPD, and blue pills to help us avoid the embarrassment of ED.

Several years ago SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) invaded our nation and turned paranoid citizens into a facemask-wearing populace. Today the CDC – acronyms rule! – is grappling with the latest disease du jour: H1N1 or, for those of us who still embrace word-speak, swine flu.

While the media hype was escalating, I was packing for a trip, fortunately to a destination in the opposite direction from Mexico. Last-minute tasks inevitably surfaced: emptying my bottomless in-box at work, cornering the market on sanitizer along with (at husband's insistence) disposable masks, and trying to figure out what H1N1 stands for.
At the airport I spritzed sanitizer on my hands. Bad move: My baggage check smudged in the misty fallout. Observing hordes of shoeless travelers winding through security like cattle on their final journey through a squeeze chute, I noted nobody wearing masks.

My flight was full. Yup, onion sandwich eater to my right (got CERTS?) and phlegm disperser to my left. Three minutes after donning my particle mask, I decided airborne germs were less threatening than the danger of suffocation while wearing a mask.
At Mom's, I forgot the swine flu hysteria, even before the incubation period lapsed. In fact I felt fine, so fine that I engaged in a beautification blitz: pulling weeds. With my brain on autopilot and my arms yanking proliferating nettles (ouch!) and white flowers smelling like garlic, I forgot the "leaves of three, let it be" mantra.

Two days later poison ivy blisters erupted on my arms and left hand. Calamine lotion helped a little but not enough.

"Try this," Mom said, handing me a medicated stick. "It has ammonia in it."

"Yow," I yelled, wincing from the pain. "I think I'd rather itch."

I was desperate for a cure so resorted to a 21st century snake oil salesman – the Internet. One site said outbreaks can occur up to two weeks after exposure. Discouraging words but true now that I was scratching my face and right knuckles. Band-Aids covered oozing blisters and I wish I'd had the H1N1. At least that would have run its course.

Exposed body parts resembled raw meat when I boarded my return flight. Attempts to conceal the rash failed as clear liquid continued to stream like a river overflowing its banks. Take a tip from me: If you want three seats to yourself on a flight, get a full-blown case of poison ivy.

I've been back a month now. The blisters are gone and the rash has faded. And I feel better. In fact, I'm not only tolerating acronyms but I've coined one of my own: LO3PI (leaves of three poison ivy). I'm so thrilled the itch is gone. I think I'll throw a garden party to celebrate. You're invited but BYOB... of calamine lotion, just as a precaution.