Poison oak
There is no delicate way to put this, so I’ll come straight out with it: I have a palm sized poison oak rash on my left butt cheek. It’s true. And, with the exception of my face or lady bits, I’d have to say that this is the worst place I could get poison oak.
Let me tell you why:
Reader: Hold on a moment. Is this about to be tmi? Because you already brought up your lady bits and I’m afraid that we will be passing into dangerous territory.
Addy: Don’t worry. I’ve only forced the gory details on my close friends. You are safe here.
Ok, back to business. Reasons poison oak on your bum is worse than being stalked by an angry mob of chickens.
Reader: What?
Addy: Give a girl a break! This itching is making me crazy.
Reason #1: Just sitting down is maddening. It is very hard to balance on one butt cheek for hours at a time, but that is what I’ve had to do. I’m taking a couple of classes at Portland Community College right now, and I’m sure my teachers wonder why I’ve been leaning far to the right and constantly fidgeting. At the end of the day, I have been left with one butt cheek sore and the other itchy. This is not a favorable combination.
Reason #2: You can’t solicit your full level of pity. If you have a poison oak reaction on your leg, you can at least show it to your friends, gross them out, and receive a lot of pity. And while my roommate did offer to take one for the team and check my rash out, I turned down her offer because I prefer to show my butt cheek to a very selective group of people. (Mom, you made it! Congratulations.)
Reason #3: Along those same lines, you can’t really see a poison oak rash on your own bum without doing a contortionist act or strategically arranging several mirrors. I have not been doing yoga long enough to make that first one work.
Reason #4: To put on Calamine lotion, you have to get naked and stay naked until it dries. This is particularly annoying if you get itchy in public. It’s a little weird to wait for a while in a bathroom stall with your pants down, so I’ve skipped that and suffered through the itching.
Reason #5: And while we are talking about itching, I will add that there is no dignified way to scratch your bum in public (or in private, for that matter).
There are many other reasons why having a poison oak rash on your bum is so bad, but I will spare you the tmi territory.
Amazingly, there is one upside to this situation. When things have gone wrong this past week and I’ve begun to take myself too seriously, all I have to do is giggle and say, “Tee-hee. I have poison oak on my bum,” and that helps lighten my mood. Because, let’s be honest, it’s just ridiculous enough to be funny.
