We Stood

I am home sick today and I fear that I could be careening towards a case of pneumonia. What I should really fear is the hypochondria that runs in my mother's side of my family. She would take us to the emergency room for gas pains or a bruise. I don't have a fever but I have a cascade of symptoms related to allergies and asthma: clogged ears, itchy bloodshot eyes, a cough that hacks up yellowish gunk while sounding tubercular. 

My neighbor Lucille's dryer vent pipe was venting cheap perfume directly into my kitchen. I complained. I have allergies, I texted. Sorry about your allegories, she replied. Her spellcheck had "corrected" her. She once told me, "We stood at the landlord's beach house overnight." I had no idea what she meant until I realized she meant "stayed." She was from a family of 13 and I used to see her mother around town exhausted and bedraggled, being propped up by some of her grown children like those old engravings on the bodily humors.