Editor’s Note: The piece below was published in The Weekly’s 2019 “Joke Issue.” All content, quotations, and other features are entirely fictitious. 

According to Food Allergy Research and Education, 5.6 million Americans under the age of 18 have a food allergy. And, even with a small student population just over 300, in recent years, Parker has taken steps to accommodate each of those 5.6 million students.

Us without allergies often do not realize their privilege. There exists an entitlement which comes with being able to eat indiscriminately and breathe fearlessly, an entitlement we do not notice until it is gone.

As a consequence of this blatant ignorance, students with food allergies often find themselves at the butt of jokes. They’re mocked for their disabilities and measures to ensure their safety are regularly berated as “overly politically correct.”  Sunbutter and jelly sandwiches wait in the cafeteria fridge, laughed at by students who have brought their own peanut butter from home.

For each article in my column, I present an unpopular opinion at Parker — serving as a “Devil’s Advocate” for our closed community. This month, I bring forth my least popular contention yet: we should respect people with allergies.

We’ve all seen it happen before: a student hesitantly approaches the front of a classroom wearing a hazmat suit “because, without it, I’ll die.” They stammer, eyes darting about like a deer in headlights, as the words gently roll from their weak, weak tongue. “I have allergies,” they say, “and of that I’m proud.”

Traditionally, students in this mold are accosted. “That so beta,” their peers will cry, mocking them for inferior genetics. But today, I stand for those who Darwinism has left behind.

Yes, being unable to eat dairy “without my Lactaid pill” is unquestionably pathetic.  Avoiding peanut butter is even more pitiful. Those who rely upon the advancement of man to combat the truth of nature are certain to perish in The Reckoning. All the same, mockery of those who lack vitality with such strength is a fool’s errand.

Frankly, it is not worth our time to persecute them.  Their allergies are punishment enough. We can let the universe torture them with gluten and cashews, no need to spend our healthy body’s energy on reminding them of their lackings.  

If it still upsets you to respect people with allergies, I understand.  I recommend reminding yourself that, had you both been born 200 years ago, you would be standing and they would be underground.  They owe their existence to the miracles of modern medicine, while your body works properly.

Their failures cannot be fixed yet their allergies persist because the wonders of the modern world have saved them.  We will simply have to deal with them and their allergies, as annoying as they are. And, if we are going to have to live with them, we might as well respect them, if only not to waste our healthy energy.