My husband was to appear as Jesus during our church’s Maundy Thursday service this year (March 2002). He asked me to try and find something to make a crown of thorns. I thought I could just go into the forest near our home and find a wild grape vine.

I found a likely looking vine and put it into our hatchback car with our nine-year-old son in the back seat. It was literally draped around him. In the meantime, my husband had made his own crown out of honeysuckle and used that during the service, so he didn’t really look at the vine I had found.

When our son showed signs on Friday afternoon of a poison ivy rash, my husband took a closer look at the vine I had found and told me that it was poison ivy, not wild grape. My son’s face, neck and arms were covered in one of the worst rashes I had seen in a long time.

(Editor’s note: one of the few things you can count on is that poison ivy never, ever has thorns!)