Inn of the Wandering Dragon

The past week and a half has been very busy in my little slice of the world. We had a night out for the staff last Wednesday, dinner at the Cattle Baron. The purpose of this gathering was to hold a belated celebration for the numerous birthdays that had occured in the previous month. On the whole it was an enjoyable evening to just relax and goof off a bit. At the end of the dinner the waitress appeared with 4 slices of cake complete with sparklers for the birthday kids. Since it looked a little more involved than the standard flavored sponge cake I had to ask if it contained nuts - which the answer was a dissapointing Yes. I passed my cake over to Janet and the waitress asked if I would like anything else instead so I made my selection. Unfortunately the end result is that there was only one caramel type dish that I was allowed to have and everything else was off limits as decreed by the kitchen staff. I tried getting just a bowl of plain ice cream but even that attept was thwarted as "they could not guarantee the serving implements had not come into contact with nuts". This of course leaves me to wonder why it would be so hard to find a clean spoon! Let's face it, for someone like me with serious food allergies the world and the grocery store can be a pretty hazardous place. Picking an item off the shelf poses the same risk of encountering nuts as going to any restaurant and that is the simple truth of it. In the end I opted for no dessert at all. My co-workers said something to the effect of bringing me dessert the next day as consolation, although we had a good giggle at Janet's idea of bringing trail mix.
The next day Jim did indeed bring in some tasty desserts, which I have had before and quite enjoyed. But with a surprising twist of irony this time they had come into contact with nuts and I spent the rest of the day rather sick. Janet had made a large batch of baking and somewhere along the line things got mixed up apparantly. The intentions were good but sometimes life happens.
My boss cringes at the thought but we joke that they are now part of the family for trying to kill me off. When you live with allergies like this you tend to need a warped sense of humor to get by!