I HATE POISON IVY.  I cannot seem to escape the stuff.  It encircled the backyard of our first house, right where I wanted to plant a border of daylilies.  I wore gloves and long sleeves when I tried to pull it up, and still ended up with welts all over my arms.  My nursing toddlers rolled around in it one day; they did not get it, but they carried the urushiol on their fat little hands and got it all over and under my breasts.  That required a steroid shot.
Knowing I am extremely allergic to the stuff, I try to stay clear of it.  I allowed it to take over my rose garden at the next house.  I lay newspaper and mulch over it, being careful not to touch it; I even had professionals try to eradicate it; but in the end I just gave up.  But knowing what it looks like and avoiding it were not enough.  My dog ran away and I had to carry him home because I ran after him without the leash in hand–bad move (I was eight months’ pregnant and he weighs 50 lbs.; it was quite a sight to behold, I’m sure!).  Apparently, he’d had a nice roll in the poison ivy before he took off, because I ended up with an arm so covered with the stuff that it drew stares.  Seriously, it looked like I’d been burned, or had acid thrown on me, or something equally horrific.  Even the steroids didn’t touch that episode.
So I was disappointed and dismayed to discover that it’s here too.  The center of the front yard is nothing but poison ivy.  It’s climbing up the trees.  Some of the leaves are bigger than my hand–I swear, it’s like Godzilla posion ivy.  My house is the one with grass over a foot high–I’m scared to mow.  Yesterday I caught my little kids climbing on a fallen down tree covered with the stuff.  I hustled them into the house for a thorough bath–you can stop the rash if you wash off all the urushiol in 15 minutes; after that it’s too late–but I made them wash themselves.  I wouldn’t touch them.
Still, despite all precautions, in spring and summer I nearly always have at least some welts.  It has to be pretty bad at this point for me to even notice it.  At the moment, it is all over my toes.

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