I feel like I’ve written this exact post before, with very similar context, and I know for certain that I used a picture of Poison Ivy the Batman villainess when I did. But long story short, I did some manual labor for Habitat For Humanity on behalf of the company that I work for, which is a good thing. But in doing so, I managed to get some nasty poison ivy on my arms despite the fact that I barely spent any time outside, and even when I was, I did not come into any contact with any poison ivy, oak or sumac, which is very much, a bad thing.
I don’t regret participating because of the eventual results of the work I contributed towards, but I do regret participating in the fact that I’m apparently very allergic to poison ivy and I’m basically receiving punishment for having done a good thing. I abhor the existence of poison ivy, and in my idle bitterness, I googled “why does poison ivy exist,” and aside from some bullshit fluff at how every plant has some potential for medicinal purposes, I frankly didn’t find a single fucking justifiable reason to why this shitty plant and its urushiol-producing relatives exist on this planet other than to troll humans who are susceptible to them.
What really aggravated me was the fact that when I got to the house in question, I didn’t have to look at the property for more than two seconds to know that I should probably work indoors. The front yard was pretty overgrown, and the back yard looked like Tarzan’s jungle. I could already see poison ivy, and the vines that were growing on the side of the house was very likely sumac. And in spite of the precautions I took and the avoidance I exhibited, I still have arms that look like raw hamburger, weeping liquid endlessly no matter how many caladryl or calamine I spread on them.
So I have to suspect that the culprit in question has to be the gloves I used, which came from a generally communal bucket full of gloves, provided by Habitat. Obviously, I’m not going to accuse and proclaim Habitat For Humanity for maliciously and deliberately supplying urushiol-slathered gloves for their volunteers to use and get afflicted by, but it’s no secret that ivy oil can stick to things for months if not cleaned, and agencies like Habitat have a lot on their plates already, so making sure gloves are kosher doesn’t seem like a likely high priority for their volunteers.
Considering the vast majority of my rashes are on my wrists and arms, precariously where the gloves would have been, it’s an easy guess to believe that I had to have been using some gloves that at some point had done some handling of brush removal or landscaping work, and had come into some pretty significant contact with poison ivy or sumac. Just my luck.
Poison ivy aside, I moderately enjoyed my volunteer day with Habitat. I got to take a sledgehammer to a bathtub, and they’re surprisingly hard to break through; at least the old ones that I took my swings to, which was part porcelain, part molded metal, and the shards were quite heavy to lift and toss into a dumpster. I also got to rip out a whole lot of old flooring, which meant I got to swing around some crowbars and claw hammers.
The worst part about the poison ivy though, is how delayed its effects ultimately are. After my volunteer day, I rushed home and immediately hopped in the shower, washed with dish soap (for its oil-removing properties), scrubbed myself thoroughly, and thought that I made it through the day scot-free. But then the next day, I had some itchiness in some spots, and it looked like I hadn’t gotten away unscathed. And then each successive day, the lesions and blisters got worse and worse, and here we are now where I’ve got a makeshift bandage on my forearm, because the worst patch of ivy rash just will not stop weeping yellowish secretions.
A part of me feels bad because I feel a lot of resentment towards the event for putting me in a situation where I got this shitty poison ivy, but at the same time, I gave my time in order to try and do something useful, helpful and charitable, and I get saddled with a shitty case of poison ivy to show for my troubles.
Despite the fact that it was low-key mandatory (nothing says team building like mandatory), I think I may have to decline if and when something like this emerges in the future. The lack of warning, inadequate protection and the fact that I’m clearly just too allergic to this shit, doesn’t make it worth the aggravation and costly expense of getting afflicted by this shit. I’ve been punished for trying to do good twice now, and I can only hope that if this type of scenario arises again in the future, I’ll have the wherewithal to avoid it then.
