It's Gonna Take An Ocean Of Calamine Lotion

I picked up something once in the woods of California that gave me a rash all over my legs. Take a tip from me and don't share a sleeping bag with any encamped homeless guys:

Once upon a time, there was a guy who was walking around and minding his own business when a bunch of snakes attacked him. They grabbed him with their snakey parts, bit him 5 billion times, then dragged him into a hot tub full of lava. Then they dragged him back out, all bit up and burned and stuff, and put him in the middle of the road, where he was run over by a billion minivans and a water buffalo.

And right now, I would gladly trade places with that guy. Why? Because I have a poison ivy rash and he doesn’t.

I don’t know if you’re allergic to poison ivy, but if you are, then you know how miserable it is. It’s just plain awful. Poison ivy rashes don’t itch all that bad; that’s not the problem. The problem is that the itchiness never, ever stops. You wake up in the morning, you itch. You go to bed at night, you itch. You catch a plane to assassinate insurgents in Prague, you itch. It never, ever stops. It’s the Chinese water torture of minor ailments.

I’ve had poison ivy rashes before, but not like this one. I used to get poison ivy all the time when I was a kid. I’d play in the woods behind my house all the time, and every summer I’d spend two or three days lying in bed, covered head to toe in angry red dots. I did this because I was a stupid, stupid child.

Read the rest here.

Bonus: poison ivy sampler! Proportionately speaking, it runs a little heavy on the cherry nougat.