by Thomas Riddell

Created on: May 28, 2008   Last Updated: June 09, 2008

When I was little I used to spend summers with my grandmother. Like most grandmothers that I know of, she religiously tended to a small garden.

One hot August day she told me that she has a job for me. She will pay me a dollar to pull the weeds from in and around her garden. Being eight years old this sounded like a great idea.

I set to work pulling all the weeds from the garden with reckless abandon. I was not given any gloves or tools, just me and my little hands playing in the dirt.

When I was done with the garden, she set me to pulling the weeds from around the perimeter. As it turned out those weren't just any weeds. They were some variety of poison ivy. I had no idea and allegedly neither did my grandmother. Needless to say, my hands and part of my face were covered with poison ivy rash by sunset.

I spent the last week of my summer vacation covered in calamine lotion and wearing mittens.

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