I am off on another business trip, this time to a nice resort in Florida. Because the lease on my car expired, and I have not gotten around to buying or leasing another car, Husband and Aitch had to drive me to the airport. We decided to leave early and stop for lunch on the way. The menu, which contained a number of food items to which Aitch is allergic, reminded me that we had left Aitch’s EpiPen at home. Husband and I discussed the likelihood of Aitch’s having a reaction on the way to or from the airport. Husband thought it was a pretty remote possibility, but I dreamed up a dire scenario, which is something I do well: What if they cooked Aitch’s chicken fingers in oil that became contaminated by shellfish, and Aitch went into anaphylactic shock while Husband was on the highway, and Husband didn’t know the route to the nearest hospital and didn’t have a cell phone to call an ambulance? As it happened, Husband didn’t have his cell phone, so I won. We drove back to get the EpiPen.

Aitch is allergic to peanuts, among many other things, and we are not yet sure how he will react to shellfish or bee stings, but I’m prepared for the worst. I prepare by imagining the worst that could happen and think about how I will react to it. I have bad dreams about inadvertent peanut exposures, where I hover over Aitch with the epinephrine but hesitate to administer it for some reason. My dream response is contrary to the advice the doctor gave us — when in doubt, give the shot — and I wake up frustrated with my indecision. Consequently, we have EpiPens secreted in every purse and diaper bag. The “trainers” that come with each package are also scattered about the house, and I frequently practice the steps required for activation — remove gray cap, grip pen in fist, jam in thigh, hold. I flew into a panic one day as I realized I had been practicing according to the directions given on the package insert and was likely, in a time of crisis, to jam the pen into my own thigh instead of Aitch’s.

Although this life-threatening allergy is terrifying in the abstract, it is surprisingly benign in the quotidian (despite this article that suggests impaired quality of life for allergic children). Aitch has never had a severe reaction, or anything worse than hives. The allergist told us that Aitch was “highly atopic,” which means not that his thesis statements are poor, but that he is likely to develop asthma. But Aitch continues to enjoy uninterrupted rude health, with nary a cough, wheeze, ear infection, or fever. Because of this, and because he doesn’t have quite the faculty for anticipating tragedy that I do, Husband finds it hard to really “believe” in this allergy. He knows intellectually that Aitch is allergic, but he doesn’t have a healthy (in my opinion — morbid, in his opinion) fear of the consequences.

Inevitably, one of us forgets the EpiPen when we take Aitch out and, unlike today, we don’t discover it until we’re back. When I’m the culprit, I wail, gnash my teeth, prostrate myself, and generally beat myself up for being a bad mother. When Husband forgets it he thinks, well, nothing bad happened, and goes on his way. If he forgets the pen when he takes Aitch, and I find out about it later, I harangue him, painting awful pictures of what might have been. This does not win me any points from Husband, who does not like being scolded, but I always think that if I can instill him with a proper respect for the death-wielding power of the peanut, he will remember next time. I feel it’s worth being a complete bitch if it means Husband remembers an EpiPen when Aitch really needs it. Husband agrees that the EpiPen is vitally important, but doesn’t see the point of dwelling on what is past.

We’ve had this discussion in one form or another throughout our marriage. Husband thinks I am too fearful, and I think Husband is not fearful (and hence not careful) enough. Forget sex drive incompatibility; what we have are out-of-synch anxiety levels.

I’m told that when Aitch reaches school age, we’ll have to deal with all kinds of resentment from kids and parents about the peanut restrictions— “Dost thou think, because thou art allergic, there shall be no more Jif and Reese’s?” and so forth. (Check out the spectacularly insensitive comments here, where more than one person suggested euthanizing the allergic child would be preferable to banning peanut butter in the cafeteria.) I hate to be the Food Nazi, but I don’t understand this attitude. Sure, in this great country we have Freedom of Lunch, but would you really want your kid’s PB&J to kill his best friend right in front of him in the cafeteria? I mean, wouldn’t that be traumatic for all the kids?

It’s horrible, in our society, how people are blamed for their own illnesses. Husband and I are chief among the discriminators. We’re very proud of Aitch’s general good health, for example, and tend to look askance at parents who are always running their kids to the pediatrician. We harbor a secret superiority — our boy never goes to the doctor! We must be doing something right! — the converse of which is that they must be doing something wrong.

Karma is a bitch, of course, and I hate to think that other parents might be blaming us for Aitch’s peanut allergy — because we exposed him to peanuts too early, or okayed some vaccination that we should have delayed, or (this was a good one suggested by our social worker) we kept our house too clean, which somehow deprived him of useful bacteria needed to process peanuts. (She must not have been paying close attention during the homestudy.) But if some disgruntled parent wants to grouse because his little Skippy can’t eat Skippy in school, I’ll be happy to play the Food Nazi. I’m already the EpiPen Nazi.