Poison Ivy Countdown

From childhood experiences I've noticed that there aren't many things that have the ability to render me bedridden. I am vulnerable to insects with the potential to deliver a venomous sting, and I also have a heightened sensitivity for anything that produces the oil urushiol, namely the poison ivy plant. As a member of the Cruz clan, I've taken great satisfaction that we rarely suffer from non-life threatening chronic conditions. It comes as no surprise that when these do occur, I'm not too pissed off since being completely healthy for 99% of my life is a good trade-off for occasionally having to suffer from an annoying illness.

This past weekend a few friends and I went to a town not far from Hagi known for its vast plateau of limestone rock outcropping and over 300 subterranean caves, one of which is the largest in all of Japan. After camping out for one night, I returned home to discover that yes, poison ivy also exists in Japan. Its been about a week since being in full bloom, and after battling it for days, I've compiled a list of the 5 worst places on your body to get poison ivy. Starting from number 5:

5. The Inner Elbow
You have no idea how much you actually bend your elbow during the course of one day, and each time I did so I was constantly reminded of the nascent rash that had started to form in the folds of my skin.

4. The Fingers
Forget doing anything that requires even an elementary level of digital movement. I individually wrapped my fingers in tape every night before going to bed, so as not to accidentally spread the rash to other undesirable parts of my body.

3. The Neck
I was forced to sit upright like an Elizabethan woman, while making exaggerated turns of the neck like John Singer Sargeant's Madame X out of fear that I would be spreading the rash if I did otherwise.

2. The Lips
When it was in full bloom, I would wake up every morning with a fine covering of dried yellow crust over both my upper and lower lips. It took a few minutes with Q-tips and Vaseline to remove it so that I could take a shower. Throughout the day my lips were pretty swollen, making me look like Jimmie 'JJ' Walker from Good Times, but I can tell you that my ordeal was far from DYN-O-MITE!!..


1. The Genitals
In no way should this even be surprising. After spending the first few days in shock wondering what the hell was going on down there, when the rash spread to other parts of my body I was relieved when I discovered it was only poison ivy. Sadly the realization does not make things any easier, and I spent the better part of my days sitting and moving as little as possible. My job requires me to stand occasionally and walk around the classroom, and to make matters worse, my students in 4th period wanted to teach me a traditional 'Japanese' sport. Luckily the sport involved standing around in a circle while trying to keep a ball in the air by kicking it, and as I started to wonder if this arcane game originated in Japan, my teacher brilliantly quipped, "It's a traditional Japanese game. Maybe they played it 4,000 years ago..."

Back to the genitals. In Japan they have public bath houses called onsens where you pay a small fee for unlimited access of the entire facility. Anyone who's had poison ivy before knows that when it comes into contact with hot water it produces the same feeling as scratching the hell out of it for a good 20 minutes, except scratching is a big No-No if you ever want to see it clear up. Knowing this, I sat in the shower booth with the hot water turned all the way up, the nozzle of the hand-held shower head aiming directly towards my crotch area, while holding on to the partitioning wall with one arm to keep myself from falling over after discovering one of the purest paths to sensual ecstasy.

Thats the list. If you are as susceptible as I am to this nasty plant, please do yourself a favor and avoid touching these 5 parts of your body if and when you have a breakout on an innocuous part of your body.