Bottling Relief

Do you remember the best feeling as a kid? I certainly remember mine. It all started when I was 8 years old and my family was helping clean my grandma’s yard on a hot southern, summer day. We started by removing a large amount of vines growing around the edge of her yard and on a fence.  

Being a little kid, I did as the grownups did; I pulled the vines up too. As I started pulling, I think the vines were possessed and knew what was in store for them. These vines put up one heck of a fight. In fact, I found myself all tangled up in leafy greens and probably looked like a cherry tomato in a salad bowl from the sunburn that I had been working on. Anyway, I had to use all of my 8 year old muscle to free myself from the wild vine. Finally the job was complete. We placed the vines in a large pile and burned them to ashes.  For a hard day’s work, grandma’s cold iced tea hit the spot for the long drive home.

When we arrived home, I started to break-out in little watery bumps, up one leg, then down the other, up one arm and down the other, even the face.  Then, the itch began and I mean itch. Oh, it felt soooo good to scratch and scratch and scratch. In fact, soooooooooo good my eyes rolled back in my head. Lucky for me, my mom applied Calamine lotion which helped soothe the itch.  The damage was already done, all that scratching created scabs which burned, especially while taking a bath and this was Sunday night, bath night for me.  After the painful hot bath more Calamine lotion, but now I looked like a strawberry dipped in cream. 

Yelp, that vine was Poison Ivy. I finally got over that bout and learned to spot the vine. I still end up in the middle of it on occasion, but I’m not as allergenic. Just think, if I could bottle that feeling of relief without the scratching, then I would become a Buzzillionaire.