So, we have come up to date with the battle of my terrible ailment that has cockblocked me for years. My mother always said that boys were intimidated by my confidence, so that's why they never had a crush on me or told me I was cute. I think that was true 95% of the time, but the other 5% was probably due to my constant battle with Poison Oak outbreaks.
The most recent time I got it when I was twenty nine and visiting my parents for Christmas. Their house is in the middle of nowhere and surrounded by woods, I didn't go and frolic in them this time, because it was raining during my stay. They have three dogs that were having to weather the storm on the porch. I felt bad for the dogs, so I went out in the rain to pet them. Poor things. Poor things? No. Assholes is more like it! Those dogs are assholes.
It wasn't until I was back in the city, a wonderful concrete jungle where the only discomfort is the sulfuric smell of urine, that I started to notice a rash spreading on my upper arm. At first, I thought it was ringworm. I got ringworm once from trying on pants from a thrift store. I think they were pants belonging to an old man, because in the 90's I was way into the "old man" look, which the navy polyester pants seemed only to suit an old man in his 70's or me. I never dreamt that it could be a visit from my rashy friend Poison Oak. I hadn't been outside or around it. How the hell did I contract it? I was only petting the dogs. THE DOGS! Here is a site that proves dogs are assholes: They can't get it but they can spread it.
Apparently you can contract the heinous rash from a dogs fur. If a dog dashes through a field of the of the dreadful plant, the oil can and will attach to their stupid fur. If a human feels sorry for a dog and pets it then they will get poison oak (with the exception of people who cannot.) Both of my parents were always incredulous when I would come home with a it. They would laugh and say, "Geez Geege I could roll around in the stuff and never get it." Yeah, that made me feel a lot better Mom and Dad. I guess it's not genetic. So, the lesson is simple: never pet your dog you might get poison oak and parents are sometimes kind of lame.
I had to make myself feel better, so I decided to gross out others and start to document my delicious rash and post it on the Internet. It's weird what people respond to. I had more comments on the state of my rash than when I posted about meeting Andre 3000 at a movie theater. People got so into it that they kept badgering me to blog about it, and you can thank those people right now; they are the true heroes.
My arm covered in Calamine Lotion (which doesn't help for shit):
A couple weeks after my horrible discovery:
And the grand finale: The rash that was once oozing from my flesh is all dried up in the picture below, but the scar left behind tells another tale:
I can honestly say that I know my dreaded friend and I will meet again. Later than sooner I hope. But the Oak is not the only dreadful thing in my dimwitted stream of bad luck. There's more...
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