The scrathing thing.

When I was ten I went to summer boy scout camp out in the boonies of the Ozark Mountains. Yes where Deliverance took place. Got to set huge camp fires, shoot arrows, and swim all day. Not a bad gig if you can get it. Lots of woods to fuck around in. Send the uninitiated on a snipe hunt. Scare the skin off people by pretending to be a forest demon. And run around climbing vines and branches. Which is where I met my friend the poison ivy plant.

A bunch of us were swinging on a vine hanging from a tree. On one of my turns I swung out really hard and high, so much so that I lost all sense of spacial placement. So I hit the tree, scraping a decent patch of skin and dermal meat from my exposed leg. Always go hiking through the woods in long pants, no shorts.

I let it go. Sought no medical assistance. I'd had scrapes before, no big woop.

I remember about three days later waiting in line to hit the swimming pool. With the pool monitor describing how a chemical added to the pool will cause urine to change color to bright blue, causing pissing miscreants to be surrounded by an accusatory aura. He also mentions how he doesn't come and swim in our toilets so don't come in there and pee in his pool. Even as a fresh faced lad I couldn't take corn. So I get chided by some scout leader for eluding to the fact the guy should shut the fuck up and let us swim.

I was a little anxious to jump in. My leg was seeping plasma at a decent clip. The gnats were having a blast gathering as much Spank food as they could. Just wanted to dive in. The wound would have had to look like rotten hamburger, but I'm not sure why no one suggested I get it checked out. Midwestern hospitality.

Apparently the tree I scraped on had poison ivy pollen embedded in its bark. So the pollen was essentially mainlined into my blood stream. It gets critical.

Wake up one day covered in itchy bumps and sores. Even had them under my eyelid, in my mouth, and um other places. A shiver up the spine is called for. I was also feverish and starting to halucinate. So they contact my folks and medvac me out of there.

I actually do not remember a time span of a week after that as I was in a constant halucinatory/coma like state. The reports from relatives elude to the fact that my brain is quite interesting and I had some strange views on life. They had me covered in medicated gauze, constantly applying healing solutions to the sores. They had to tape up my fingers with huge balls of cotton as I was constantly unconsciously scratching everywhere it itched, which was everywhere, and I was ripping away flesh exacerbating the problem.

Ever since then I can't take my body itching and I scrath away uncontrolably, even while slumbering. That combined with a horrific PCP trip I accidentally experienced makes me somewhat twitchy and edgy when I get stoned. I'm just here to entertain.