Skip to main content

TIFU by using Poison Oak to get back at my mom.

Obligatory, this did not happen today, but well over 20 years ago when I was maybe 11 or 12 years old. On mobile so yeah spelling & formatting.

At the time of this TIFU, I was still a shy and anxious pre-teen who never overtly acted out. Follow whatever mom and dad said and keep my head down to survive the rules.

My "subtle covert" acting out took on a whole new level one weekend. I played soccer and during the Saturday tournament my mom told me something I had do some something and I didn't like it. What it was I don't recall anymore, I just remember being angry and let down. So my brilliant mind came up with a plan to spoil whatever it was if the opportunity presented itself.

Now, this soccer tournament was at an old complex that had neat trails & creeks through the adjacent woods that players and other kids would enjoy between matches. Between one of my games I was playing tag in the woods and stumbled across a massive patch of poison oak.

I knew what it was from the many times my parents showed it to me on various camping trips. I knew it wouldn't bother me, because I was "immune" like my mother and it only made my skin red, not itchy. Oh how naive I was. So so naive.

My little angry brain when "bingo!" I can fake being sick to get out of whatever my mother wanted me to do. And so, I began to hatch my little plan.

I didn't just walk around in the poison oak patch. Noooo, that wasn't enough. I picked the leaves and rubbed myself down. Face, arms, legs, ears.. basically whatever wasn't covered by the clothes I was wearing. Crunched up the leaves and squashed them behind my knees. I bathed myself in the stuff for probably 20 minutes, giggling at my genius idea. I even went back later in the day to make sure I didn't miss any spots on my legs & arms.

It was not genius. Within three days I had the most itchy, intense and painful rash covering the majority of my body. My left eye was swollen shut. It hurt to move and I couldn't bend my elbows or knees. I shocked the doctors and basically bathed in creams for the next week. I didn't get hospitalized but did have to see my pediatrician 3 days in a row. Did I get out of whatever it was my mother wanted me to do? I don't even know.

What I do remember is that to this day my parents still think that the complex mowed poison oak growing on the fields. They filed a complaint and I single handedly shut down the complex for 2 weeks so they could treat everything.

Did I cry when I heard my games got cancelled. Yes, yes I did. Am I "immune" to poison oak? Nope, I just permanently made it worse for myself.

Lesson? Dont bathe in poison oak to make your mom mad.

TL;DR - Mom wanted me to do something I didn't want too. While at my soccer tournament I found some poison oak by chance, basically bathed in it and made myself super sick to get out of whatever mom wanted. Shut down the complex too.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

TIFU - Don’t do what I did

On Sunday morning Aug. 24th, I awoke to discover a large blind spot in my right eye, which turned out to be what is called wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD). It has resulted in a very significant, permanent loss of vision in that eye. Although I maintain good peripheral vision, whatever I focus on at best is very blurry, and mostly disappears. I can barely make out the large E at the top of the eye chart. If this happens to my left eye I’ll be unable to read or drive. It turns out that I missed the opportunity that I had to prevent this from becoming a serious problem because I failed to report what appeared to be minor changes in my vision. In the weeks prior to August I had noticed that what I knew to be straight lines appeared to my right eye to have a little waviness. I also noticed that the color of my front lawn, which I could see through the window from my recliner,  was subdued, looked almost gray, in my right eye. So I scheduled an eye exam, which revealed the p...
Post a Comment
Read more

TIFU by getting suspended for 2 days by my front office in school.

I (13M) am an African American student at Jeannette junior high who had got suspended for 2 days here. I was in math class minding my business until my teacher had told me to go to the main office, which posed no problem to me. As i went down there, the people of the front office had stopped me and made me get a new ID (yes, we have id's.) so i had asked them if i could maybe do a different alternative and call my mother to let her bring the Id here, even then, the Id isn't that important. So, although i was talking to them in a calm manner and not showing any signs of rebellion, they had threatened to call the police on me without thinking twice before calling my parents. This is where i started getting angry, and even then now the black peers agree that could have been a racially motivated action. They then told me to sit in the office conference room because of that, leading into more anger. They had then called my mother who had came over to the school didn't even let ...
Post a Comment
Read more

TIFU by putting my already skinny jeans in the dryer on high heat.

TL;DR: Was stupid and didn't realize I put my clothes on extra high heat in the dryer. Had to rock skintight skinny jeans all day with tighty whities (only clean pair I had since I procrastinate doing laundry like crazy). I guess the constant wedgies and squishing are punishment for my stupidity. Honestly don’t know who else to blame but myself for this. I’m a scatterbrained guy so I literally put the highest setting on a load with most of my clothes, and my skinny jeans that I was planning to wear today. You can probably already see where this is going, but somehow I didn’t. For context, these jeans were already pushing the limits of what could reasonably be called wearable. They fit, technically, but only in the sense that I could get them on with enough determination and a bit of strategic breathing. Sitting down in them was more of a commitment than a casual action. Still, they looked good, and I had convinced myself that discomfort was just part of the aesthetic. So this m...
Post a Comment
Read more