When I was a child, I knew that there was a lung infection people talked about all the time, called ammonia. Another lung infection, called pneumonia, was much more serious: so much so that people could not bring themselves to say its name, only to write it down. It was a forbidden word that, if ever spoken aloud, would be pronounced “puh-noo-me-uh.”

I, myself, was partial to bronchitis, a disease I have contracted every year of my life, thanks no doubt to early and extensive exposure to second-hand smoke. I have never had pneumonia (or ammonia, for that matter) until the present day, and you can imagine how happy I am to have developed it in middle of my Last Vacation Ever. Scottish puddles did this to me, and United Airlines probably had a hand in it, too. Scotland and United Airlines will pay for their evil deeds, oh yes they will, for I have a long memory.

I am lying. I actually have a short memory. Tomorrow, I will be cozying up to Scotland and United Airlines, just like always.

Tomorrow, I will also continue posting my travel journal. Writing about it now, it’s funny to look back now and have a classification for all of those bizarre symptoms I was manifesting besides “conspiracy of poltergeists.”

Although poltergeists and pneumonia both are supposed to respond well to garlic.