So there I was, minding my own business, picking black raspberries with my new girlfriend, at her place way down south in the Berrien Springs Universe, when I was told “There are lots of good ones back there but it might be hard to get to them;” so I replied, “No worries, I know how to blaze a trail!” and I proceeded to do a very interesting walk through the brambles with my short pants on and I really think this run-on sentence is more than long enough.

Don’t you agree??

Yes, of course you do.

About a month before, my new girlfriend, her son, her doggie and I were traipsing through the network of trails she carved into the woods with her Monster Big John Deere Mowing Machine. Along the way I was warned that an uninvited crop of poison ivy was thriving rather nicely… and they pointed them out so I wouldn’t mistakenly try to eat the leaves or rub them on my ears and into my nostrils. I successfully avoided catastrophe! I mean, hey, I’m not as dumb as I look.

Or am I??

Fast foward to the aforementioned berry picking time which was something like two weeks ago. I was very focused on picking a really good batch of black raspberries… you know, more in the bucket than what went into my mouth. I’ve picked raspberries and blackberries numerous times in short pants, the result of which would be what resembled a wildcat trying to remove the skin off my legs. But I didn’t care… I was after berries!!

Yeah well I plum ignored the possibility that maybe during my trail blazing in pursuit of those outlying berries, some poison ivy might be lurking in the thickets. Took several days, but my ignorance produced a pretty good size rash on the front of my left leg and a smaller one on the back of my right leg. Also I noticed that both of these rashes were really uncomfortable!! What a surprise!!

No. No surprise at all. The discomfort I mean. But fooey… I’ve gone berry picking in shorts many, many times but never ever had any encounters with this poison named Ivy. Just color me grateful after hearing horror stories about people getting poison ivy all over their faces, hineys, or much worse.

So Ivy and I are not friends. I waited 71 years to have this experience, and it would have been very OK with me to wait at least 190 years more. The rash seems to be subsiding now… but it still looks like I have a pretty severe radiation burn on that left leg. I think maybe I should wear long pants next time I go trail blazing in the woods around my girlfriend’s house. Or perhaps I could just stick to the trail her Monster Big John Deere Mowing Machine makes. I’ll just try not to be as dumb as I look next time.

I wonder if these guys wrote this song special for me…