The Killer Chipmunk, Poison Ivy and a Mysterious Bruise...

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If one more person says, “Leaves of three, let them be.” I am going to shove my fist deep down their throat.

Really?  Leaves of three, huh?  Could you be more specific?  Do I look like a friggin’ girl scout? It’s the mother flipping woods.  Everything has leaves, hell they all look like groups of three. 

And FYI, if you tell me to stop scratching, which is the only source of satisfaction I have in my whole misery filled day, I am going to rub a big section of oozing mess right in your face.  Promise. 

I have developed an allergy to this particular weed in my late 30’s.  It seems ridiculous.  But in the past year I have gotten a disgusting poison ivy rash three times.  Never in my whole childhood have I had it, not my wild keg party in the deep woods teen years, not while I was dating my earthy, granola boyfriend Ethan and pretending to LOVE nature by camping out every weekend in college, but in my sedentary 30’s.  It’s a cruel joke.  

I have the most heinous case of poison ivy right now that goes from my nose to my ankles.  I have endured steroid shots and a steady dose of oral steroids that I am currently using as my excuse to be a colossal bee-otch.  (Silver Lining!!)

This is what I get for drinking a "beverage" in the middle of the afternoon.  I had a bottle of "adult liquid refreshment" and was enjoying the view in my gorgeous backyard, when I noticed some ivy growing up the trunk of my favorite tree. 

Oh, poo. 

I’ll just rip that down. 

Wait, look at that tree, I’ll rip some more. 

What is that vine on my peony plant? 

Wild strawberry?  

I’ll just get that too! 

Look at me!  I am a landscaping genius! 

Rip, rip, rip. Fling, fling, fling.

24 hours later.  SHIT!

I will stop whining about this long enough to tell you that I am loving me some Ben-a-dryl!  What a modern medicinal marvel that shit is!

I take Benadryl every night.  I will stop after the poison ivy goes away.  (Well, maybe…) 

One particular night, I had taken my elixir of peaceful slumber and itch eraser and headed to bed at 8 pm.  I was sleeping soundly when there was the sound of frantic pounding on my bedroom door. 

“You had better be bleeding or on fire.”  I garbled in my antihistamine stupor.

“Mom, Dad… There is a chipmunk in my room.”  The middle one, yelled this.  4 times, in rapid succession. 

My only sound reply was, “Really?  Is it alive?” 

My husband jumped out of bed mumbling something profane, and I followed, bumping into every piece of furniture and doorway on the way to our middle daughter’s room.

We pulled all the furniture into the middle of the room and used the cat to sniff out the chipmunk.  We cornered it and captured it with a pool skimmer.  We covered the top of the skimmer with a stuffed parrot and thought our ordeal was soon to be over.

Well… not so fast.

Chipmunks are crafty little rodents and they like to climb. 

This one, I will call him Alvin, had moves like Bruce Lee and did some crazy kung fu acrobatics and jumped out of the skimmer and was then loose in my downstairs.  The cats just sat on the stairs and watched us stumbling around like idiots shouting at each other about whose fault it was and accusing each other (profanely, of course) of some sort of conspiracy meant to deprive the rest of the family of sleep. 

It was just quality family banter, no big whoop.

There was now 3 times the amount of area for this pain in the ass to hide in. 

Fast forward 30 minutes.  We have moved every piece of furniture, disassembled every baseboard heater and… nothing.

Frig this nonsense.  Let’s go to bed and let the cats deal with Alvin.  I would rather sleep and clean up rodent guts when I am NOT drugged up and sleep deprived.

“Wait”, says my brilliant husband.  “The coat closet is ajar.  Let’s check and see if the chipmunk (he never warmed up to the name “Alvin”, I believe he is more of a “Simon” fan) is in there.”

“Good idea” I replied. 

No dumbass, not a good idea.

As my husband and I crouched in front of the small door, blocking any sort of escape for little Alvin, this shit stain ran up my naked leg and sent me into hysterics and some sort of epileptic fit! 

Oh, it was at this point that I began to involuntarily squeal the word, “Rabies, Rabies, Rabies.”  I shoved my husband to the ground, kicked over a shelf and began to climb the doorframe in some weird attempt to escape from a 4 inch rodent who had already run into the next room.  Where the hell did I think I was going?

As I was clawing my way to the top of the doorframe, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. 

Holy Hell. 

I was wearing a t-shirt and underwear.  I had hair that was so wild, that I looked like some 1980’s Long Island mall rat on my way to a Bon Jovi concert. 

But the best part was the effect the poison ivy rash had on the whole scene.  I looked like a heroin addict in some sort of withdrawal.  Because, remember, I was hanging from a door frame screaming, “Rabies!”

It gets better. 

I looked away from the mirror long enough to see my 15 year old daughter, Child #1, standing on the stairs, staring at me with a sick sense of joy.  She was enjoying herself.  A little too much.

And so the above picture makes sense to me, now.  After trying to piece together the events of that evening, I can see the perfect alignment of the bruise to the doorframe and my frantic attempts to escape from the killer chipmunk.

I am pretty sure this story, will be told at every family event from now to eternity. 

Much like the time I stepped in human poop outside the doctor’s office.  But that story is for another day….