Anytime a product is billed as an exfoliant and promises to remove an itching rash by “bonding with the poison oil and washing away with vigorous rubbing”, DON’T BELIEVE THE HYPE. This crap I paid $25 for yesterday did nothing but piss off the poison ivy I already had until it reached meltdown stage last night: this point was when my wife turned to me and said, “We have to…you know.”

Because my loving wife knows just how squeamish I am around needles, “We have to…you know” is code for Go get me a needle so I can heat it over a candle flame and pop the humongous boil that’s hanging off your forearm like a conjoined twin.

You see, this product contains little balls of plastic that are supposed to be there for scrubbing, like that soap with the sand in it that’s supposed to help with getting all the engine grease out from between your fingernails. The difference is that engine grease doesn’t get mad and expand like a Satan-posessed party balloon. There I am in the shower yesterday, praying that this crap will take the itching away, and I’m rubbing it into the blisters, and I felt like a dog when you hit The Spot—where the dog goes into uncontrolled fits of scratching and gets the faraway look in its eye. it felt SO GOOD to itch this stuff. I rubbed the crap in for the prescribed 30 seconds, and then washed it off carefully so as to not splash any of the poison oil on any sensitive areas, and then applied Step 2, which is a clear cortisone cream with the consistency of snot. Here was Clue Number Two. The $40 competing product claimed that relief would be immediate, while this shit had me immediately pouring some kerosene onto the brushfire.

So after “We have to…you know,” we both stood in the kitchen and mopped up the liquid that leaked out of my arm until it was normal-sized again, and again after it blew right back up to full angry size and we drained it again, and then a third time. (It was at this point I knew that I was destined to have children with this woman; I flashed back to the day I came down off the roof, having been stung by a wasp, and pointed my swelling hand at her, hopping on both feet like a kid who needs to go potty. She quickly made a potion of baking soda and water and put it on the sting, and it felt better in seconds. Our roles became clear: I will teach them how to shingle roofs, and she will teach them how to reattach their own limbs.) After the third draining it looked a little tired—all that anger wears a conjoined twin out, I guess—so we returned to the couch and our regularly scheduled coughing and hacking. Every once in a while I’d mop it with a tissue to make sure it wasn’t leaking into the couch, but it remained relatively quiet for the rest of the evening.

This morning I woke up and did the inventory: Cough? Check. Sore throat? Check. Mucus puddle in lungs? Check. Angry, freakish blisters covering forearms? Check. Except it’s even nastier, if you can believe this: it’s crusted over where it leaked out last night (I had it wrapped up in a sock) and still leaking.

I think that maybe discretion should be the better part of valor here, so today I’m going to spare my co-workers the sight of my conjoined twin attempting separation and the Black Lung. This shit is gross.

The poison ivy which was tickling my forearm the other day has grown to huge proportions; it’s sprouted on my neck, on my other forearm, and now there’s a little patch behind my right knee. After consulting the Internet yesterday, I hit the drugstore in search of this stuff called Zanfel, which promises to wash the urishiol off the skin and reduce the swelling. I was all ready to buy that little tube until I looked at the price: $40. I wound up going with a competing product, and followed the instructions, and nothing has changed. So I’m out $25 and still itching.

We are still a sickhouse, as well—this flu is not letting up yet. I feel a smidgen better today, but I’m not going to kid myself into thinking that I’m better. I still produced plenty of lung butter this morning, and my head is still draining. Jen is still slightly better than walking dead, so we make quite an attractive zombie couple when we’re out in public.

There were two good bits of sunshine this morning, however; I opened our tax return info and found that we’re not paying the gub’mint $400 like we thought, but actually getting a little over $1,700 back due to our mortgage interest. So I think we’re going to put that in the kitty for the kitchen and sit on it a while.

The second good omen appeared when I went back into the kitchen to refill my coffee. Happily pecking at the thistle feeder ouside our window were a pair of finches, one yellow and one a bright reddish pink. I called for Jen to come in and peek over my shoulder, and we watched them eat and chirp at each other quietly for a few minutes. These are the first we’ve seen, and it made us very happy to have them. Eventually the yellow one flew off and was replaced by the female mate of the red male. I hope they bring back some friends.

There’s a good way to find out how much cough syrup you have in your medicine cabinet: stagger into the bathroom at 2:30am after you’ve hacked your way through four long dark hours, and then rustle through the contents—making sure you don’t drop everything and wake up your wife. I brought some kind of viral throat ailment home last week and thoughtfully gave it to Jen. Our doctor helpfully told me it wasn’t the strep and sent me home to find some chloraseptic, and the two days following my visit I felt about as fine as a viral infection would let me, so I thought I was better.

Saturday we decided to marshall our strength and focus it out in our yard. I got up early to check out some of the local yard sales in our neighborhood, but in a rare moment of better judgement, I resisted the urge to buy stuff and picked up eight bags of mulch for the bushes instead. Between the two of us, we got the both planters installed in front of the greenhouse, the day lilies replanted from the east flowerbed, the vines on the west side cut back (not without a light dose of posion ivy for your enterprising correspondent), the front hedges mulched, and I replaced the nasty lattice holding up the grape vines with a sturdy frame of square posts.

All this activity was apparently not what I needed, because it was impossible to fall asleep last night. The throat affliction was back, and worse than ever. We both woke up groaning and decided a trip to DC for the cherry blossom festival was not on our dance card. We hit the store and stocked up on vitamin-C based products, medicine, and cookies, and headed home. Jen suggested we detour past a local house which advertises fresh honey for sale, so we drove past and noticed a fellow out back digging post holes among a group of hives. The lady who met us in the driveway offered honey and bee pollen, and we chatted with her about their hobby. Soon her husband joined us, and he offered the five-cent tour around his backyard, as well as offering his help in starting our own hive. While the idea is an exciting one, we decided next year might be better for us. (Natural honey is delicious, by the way.) We took it easy for the rest of today. Two episodes of Ken Burns’ Jazz, some warm tea, and fresh warm air (as well as 500mg of cold remedy) have done good things for me; hopefully some robitussin and a good night’s sleep will help as well.

Postscript: Turns out the Prednisone I had left over from the last case of poison ivy is probably not the best thing to take right now; it reduces swelling but also weakens the body’s immune system.