African-American

I will preface this by saying that I am most certainly NOT a racist. I don't despise black people, I don't look at them as some sort of inferior race, but.........
I don't understand the continual reference to black folks referring to themselves as African-Americans?
Why don't I go around saying: "Hi, my name is Ben, I'm an Irish;English;German and French American"?

Really, I just would like to hear a lucid - not emotional - response to this. I'm white and you're black. So what?

Zycam

When was it, last year? I was starting to get sick and so was Mary - she made a plea for me to get some of that Zycam stuff. It's swabs that you put on the tip of your nose and it allegedly shortens the life of a cold. I thought, well why not? We went through 2 boxes of that stuff before I stopped using it - it wasn't really working that well and it is expensive - seemed quite a waste.

I did not put 2 and 2 together after using that stuff, because I had no clue until recently when I was reading online about Zycam.

My sense of smell. I didn't lose it - I can still smell everything, but I also get "strange" smells, I'll put it - that come out of nowhere and stay for hours at a a time. Chemical odors - that's how I will have to put it - that linger in my nostrils. There is no source.

I smell something - whatever - and that smell might stay in my nose for half a day, or 2 hours, or whatever. It's weird. It's been awhile and I've gotten used to it. It was only recently when I started reading about Zycam and the effects is has on your sense of smell, a thing that apparently everyone on earth knows about - excepting me. Many people using that stuff have lost their sense of smell altogether.

I thought I was going crazy when I started smelling smells that had no apparent source. I haven't said anything about this - at all really - until now. I knew it wasn't normal - but I didn't feel bad or anything - hoped it would go away. It hasn't and apparently it never will. I have a full box of that S*** in my bathroom that's going to go into the trash can.

I was appalled to start reading about the thousands of people who have made claims against Zycam and that the government apparently has been issuing warnings about this product for years. I NEVER saw any of those warnings, if I had, I would have NEVER used the stuff.

What's done is done. I don't really find the situation aggravating or even annoying - it's just a little odd at times to get smells in my nose that are nothing I had ever smelled before anywhere and that just stay there for extended periods of time.