Where's Dr. House when you need him?

So Friday night was pretty great. The team got together for a time of fellowship and American-style hamburgers. A friend tempted me to gluttony and I actually ate a hamburger for once, as well as cheesecake and a nice Turkish beer. All was well, until I got home and curled up in bed.

Suddenly I was beset by an intense itchy feeling. It started on my legs, but soon spread to my entire body. I spent a sleepless night wracked by intense pain. At first I thought my little room was the next victim in the epidemic of bedbugs I keep hearing about in the news. But when I got up and looked in a mirror, I saw that I was covered head to toe in hives.

What on earth could have caused this? I'm in a new country, in a completely new environment. I could be reacting to anything. The possibilities were myriad. Was it

A) something I ate?
B) a new soap, shampoo, or detergent?
C) my supervisor's new cat?
D) stress?
E) air pollution?
F) the curse of the Phrygians come to haunt me?
G) my blanket?
H) my toothpaste?
I) paranoia?

Seriously. Everything here is new. Sights, smells, foods, microbes, you name it, this is my first exposure.

The hives got worse through Saturday and Sunday. Eventually they spread to my face, and like Quasimodo, I became disgusted by my ghastly deformity and cloistered myself in the house while my two flatmates went out for coffee with friends, job interviews, and jogs. (It was at this point that I recognized the sole virtue of the burqa, a garment seldom seen here but which I would gladly have donned for the privilege of going out without revealing my disfigured appearance.)

They did come back bearing gifts: roses sprayed in some odd sort of wax to make them brighter, tiny evil eye trinkets, and--best of all--some antihistamines procured from a Turkish pharmacy. Way to go, flatmates!

These "nazar" trinkets are a common sight here. In the superstitious traditions of folk Islam, jealous eyes are portals for evil spirits to cause harm. Nazar are thought to protect the bearer from the evil thoughts emanating from other people's jealous eyes. Clearly Lady Gaga has become jealous of my great beauty and charm and thought to inflict me with an allergic reaction of epic proportions.

Or maybe it was the laundry detergent I found in the bathroom and used to wash my clothes last week. This was my eventual conclusion as I ticked through my mental list of possible culprits. I spent most of Saturday and Sunday doped up on the Turkish equivalent of Benadryl, which left me pretty loopy. When I finally recovered from my stupor Monday morning, my hives were gone and my face was all puffy like a cartoon chipmunk. However, the hives returned when I put on a top I'd washed earlier this week. When I changed, the hives receded again. Bingo.

So now I'm only slightly deformed, and washing all my clothes twice: once with a new detergent I bought, and again without detergent to make sure everything is super rinsed out before I let it touch my skin. Lesson learned: a few extra dollars is sometimes worth it.