One morning I quickly threw on some loose-legged shorts, sans underwear, and went out to pull some weeds. Unbeknownst to me, I was receiving multiple mosquito bites in anatomical locations unmentionable.

I came across some very tiny young sprigs of poison ivy, almost too small and innocent-looking to seem like much of a threat. Every time I tried to grab the tiny poison ivy sprigs to pull them out with my gloved fingers the stems just slipped right through my bulky gloves. I rationalized that I was nearly finished with my weed pulling and therefore I could risk taking off my gloves and grasping these tiny stems of poison ivy with my bare fingers as long as I quickly washed my hands afterward. Well, those little sprigs were still too slick to get a grip on, but I could solve that by digging my fingernails into the stems and then yanking. I absolutely knew I had Poison Ivy sap under my fingernails, but I was almost done and would go in and wash.

Absentmindedly, I must have reached down to scratch a strategically located mosquito bite… resulting in the worst case of Poison Ivy rash in the worst imaginable unmentionable anatomical location.

(Editors note: scratching the tender skin of the face and elsewhere is a primary way that people give themselves a bad rash in a bad place.)