Alrighty, I’ve told this story before, but it’s been about a year.
Now, understand that I am a camping and scouting veteran, a camp counselor, and an avid hiker; I know damn well what poison ivy looks like, along with every possible rhyme to remind a person.
Leaves of three let it be, red tint, it’s not difficult. I could spot the stuff from a mile away.
But this was a special occasion.
I was a brand new wildlife student, two years ago, facing for some reason my toughest challenge yet–Dendrology lab. We learned about 10-20 new trees every week in the field, and every week we were also tested on what we learned last class (along with their scientific names).
Memorizing Latin wasn’t an issue, but I was having notable trouble keeping up with identification (and we weren’t even into autumn yet, when the leaves are gone).
Now, when you’ve been doing something for years and years, it’s easy to sometimes overlook something odd, because you tend to fall into a habit of glancing and moving on, confident in your assessment, as long as the stakes aren’t enormous.
So this is a field quiz, no big deal. My professor is relaxed. He’s an impressive dude with a lot of knowledge, and he could probably about identify a tree blindfolded using some sort of echolocation known only to foresters.
So when he glanced at a small but particularly interesting poison ivy plant, he didn’t notice something crucial, which was its uncharacteristic leaf.
See, we were just a few classes into the semester, so we only knew about two trees with a very specific type of leaf called a “mitten lobe,” and those were Sassafras and Box elder.
Sassafras can actually produce three different leaves, the middle one in the photo being the mitten lobe (x):
So this poison ivy plant was not only growing out of the ground like a sapling, instead of as a vine or small shrub like we were used to, but it also had a mitten lobe as one of its few leaves.
I’m not sure if it was a mutated plant, or what exactly was going on, but this is not a normal thing.
Our professor missed it, but we were all hyper-analyzing this tree, because we were new to identification. So of course we all saw the mitten lobe and thought, well it’s either sassafras or box elder! We didn’t pay attention to ANYTHING else. It felt like some sort of trick question. The Mitten Lobe was the object of our entire, collective focus.
So, there are a few ways to tell sassafras and box elder apart. One method–in retrospect, the recommended method–being the branch alignment. This is THE most basic and first step to breaking down trees into possible identities. It’s where most people start.
And the other being the distinctive smell and taste of sassafras (if you crush a leaf, it smells a lot like fruit loops).
And how are a bunch of new, gung-ho students halfway through a test and eyeball-deep in stress going to decide on the difference?
We’re going to stick the leaf in our mouths.
So we all grabbed a leaf and tore it apart to share with our classmates and stuck the pieces in our mouths. Understand when I say not a single student knew the mistake we were making, because they absolutely would have interrupted the test.
Our professor was distracted, and we were all chewing slowly, as if at a wine tasting, mulling over the taste of the leaf and our options. It didn’t taste like sassafras, or like anything, really.
Which I said. Which is when our professor turned to me in horror and said “Molly Anne, did you just eat that leaf?”
I told him yes, and he was SO Plainly Horrified that I’m not kidding when I say half of the class–the half that hadn’t partaken in our cursed salad–immediately realized what we had done and put their pencils to their test to write in “poison ivy.”
Anyway, once it dawned on us our terrible mistake, a few things happened:
My professor asked us how we managed this, and we basically kept repeating “THE MITTEN LOBE” over and over again.
I called my mom, and she immediately said “you’re not doing well in Dendrology, are you?”
She went to Poison control for advice, and I had to break the news to my classmates that we were likely to break out orally and anally.
After the quiz, I went home for the day, and my professor called me twice to make sure I was alright.
I had never gotten poison ivy before, so I held out hope my apparent immunity would hold up for me in my darkest hour.
Although I wasn’t the only leaf-eater, I was the loudest and most dramatic in the aftermath (I found it hilarious), so I became known as the Only Fallen Dendrology Student in the incident.
When it came up in a lecture later that week, one of my professors laughed, “that was you?”
I am pleased to report that I did not break out. However, a few of my classmates weren’t so lucky and said they got it badly in their throat.
A week later, once of my classes toured an herb farm, and I asked to taste every single plant we saw, even when told “sure….you can…but it’s disgusting.”
Someone in my class couldn’t believe my dedication and said, “didn’t you just eat poison ivy like a day ago?”
Yes, I did.
EDIT:
I’m seeing people tag this like “don’t try this if you’re not experienced!”
?? ? ? ? Don’t?? Try this AT ALL?? At WHAT point in this story was there a takeaway of “hey go out and eat poison ivy to see what happens, but ONLY if you are in this field!!”
do you ever look back at a childhood memory and think that it should have by all rights become a significant theme in your life and you wonder why the fuck those things/people haven’t come back around yet and then remember that your life isn’t a perfectly plotted out novel?
Aww shucks. It’s almost like I asked for this opportunity. (I did. Thank you for indulging me, @laughingthelaughiest) General warnings for the description of things involved with terrible car accidents – aka screeching metal and lots of blood. Happy ending though, I promise! Nobody died.
I am six years old. My father plows snow in the winter months, which means that bolted onto the front of his work truck is a very heavy snow plow that – when not in use – rests primly about a foot above the ground like a lady lifting up her skirts as she steps over a puddle.
“Hey kiddo, do you want to come to work with me?” my dad asks one day during a relatively minor* snowstorm.
(* minor my ass)
Because there was nothing more exciting to me at this time in my life than sitting in a warm truck and watching what is essentially a large metal trough push tons of snow from one end of a parking lot to the other, I practically yell, “WHY YES DAD, THAT SOUNDS GREAT!!!” and we get in the truck.
Only instead of arriving at our intended destination, we encounter a car coming from the opposite direction that spins out on a patch of black ice and manages to hurtle broadside at full speed into the plow.
I am pretty much just flung forwards, and terrible things happen to my face when my body continues on its general trajectory towards the windshield. Thanks, momentum!
Luckily (and novel-like), there was a nurse a couple of cars behind us who stopped to see if everyone was okay. She opened my door to find that I was very clearly not okay, and while my father did his best to staunch the blood that was streaming down my face, she tasked herself with keeping me conscious until the paramedics arrived.
Being six and probably concussed, she didn’t talk to me about anything complicated. I did not know who the president was. I sure as heck couldn’t have told you the date. But my favorite subject in school? I know that! Reading! My favorite color? Yellow! My favorite animal? GIRAFFES.
It’s important at this stage to mention that this car accident occurred on a street where people lived, and there had been a group of boys playing in the snow two houses up from where the truck stopped. Boys + crushed cars + blood = apparently just riveting, because a couple of them were staring at me/the vehicles from a couple yards away.
At my presumably slurred but very enthusiastic response of “GIRAFFES!” one of these boys split off from the rest and hoofed it through the snow towards his house. I was too focused on wanting to sleep and the nurse not letting me to notice this, but it for sure happened. As you will see.
Several sirens later, I am loaded into the ambulance wearing a neck brace and what feels like all of the gauze on planet Earth. My dad climbs in next to me, and the paramedic is just about to shut the doors when there’s a very small voice from outside.
We are all as so:
My father: probably still terrified that I’m going to die, literally could not care less what this other tiny child who is not his has to say, wants to get to the hospital, still has to call and tell my mom that I’m injured
The paramedic: good at his job, knows I’m stable, has a moment to spare, leans back out of the ambulance.
Myself: still in shock, staring up at the rows of medical supplies and disgustingly bright lighting, more concerned that my dad will crush my fingers than anything else going on in, say, the bleeding face area. (Severe head injury? Who’s she? DAD I KNOW YOU LOVE ME BUT PLEASE LET GO OF MY HAND THAT HURTS.)
The boy who had hoofed it home and then evidently hoofed it right back: “Would you please give this to the little girl who got hurt?”
Me now in the year 2018: wanting to cry because I still can’t believe this is a real thing that happened to me in real life and it wasn’t a dream it was real
So the paramedic says “Yes, of course. She’ll love it!” or something equally as efficient because I am still technically quite injured and they really do need to get to the hospital at some point. The boy leaves, the door is shut, the paramedic sets something on the stretcher next to me.
[pause for dramatic effect]
We tried to find the kid who gave him to me, but nothing ever came of it. In the back of my fully healed head I’m still waiting for the novel that must be my life to shoehorn that boy back into the plot. Where are you, giraffe man? I have to thank you for the best gift I’ve ever been given.
i'll apple your turnover 