Ramblings of a Plywood Peddler

Let the mother f'er bun. That pretty much sums up the last few days for me.

It all goes back to day saturday morning (harpy flashback music), I awoke to a beautiful day. Sunny and 60-65 degrees and not a cloud in the sky. See a while back I told my wife that we would make a planting bed in the back yard to hide the fence and some of the view of the barren wasteland behind our house. In order to do this I would have to build a small retaining wall across the backyard in order to accomplish this; I have had the materials for at least 8 months and have put it off for a while now. So I thought - what better day than this to get it done.

As I got started I found that while it was cool - I was getting hot and it felt like a great day to get a little sun for casper the friendly ghost. So off came the shirt; this turned out to be a very , VERY bad idea. I got back to work and the hours passed. I looked at my watch and before I knew it it was 330, I had started at 1030 - and had been shirtless most of that time. I thought to myslef - I am gonna hurt tomorrow, so I put the shirt back on and finished up; too little too late.

After I finished I went inside to tkae a shower and realized the extent of the damage. The best way to describe it would be to say that I look like a lobster that never got turned over on the grill, nice and red on one side and raw on the other, not good I thought. I proceeded to start treatment with lotion to lessen the effect and truthfully the pain wasn't all that bad, until the itching started.

On the way home from work Monday night I began to twitch and itch all over my back, not just little itchies here and there but it was like ants were biting all over my back and it wouldn't stop. I got home and changed clothes figuring I should let it breath, bad idea - it only got worse. Soon I was stomping, running, raging around the house trying to figure out a remedy. Finally I got in the shower...ahh the relief, but it would only be temporary. About ten minutes later - it was back and more intense, my wife told me to get in the tub and soak while she went to the store.

She came back with a bunch of stuff - aloe, solarcaine, vitamin E oil - all kinds of stuff; none of which worked. So I struggled to sleep through the night, it seemed to subside that is until I took a shower the next morning. As I normally do I got up to take a shower, got dressed, breakfast - you know the drill. I had a few moments of terror - little flare ups I thought, they will go away - nope. We got in the car and headed to work, at about the halfway point I began to twitch and itch more and more; it got so bad that I had to pull over. I can ony imagine how funny it must have looked to the passers by - a half dressed man getting a rubdown in the parking lot of an old antique store - I would have laughed.

I tried to go on but it only got worse - so back to the house we go. Running for the shower clothes flying everywhere all I could do was beg for it to stop but it wouldn't. I jumped out of the shower and my wife lathered me up again. Impatiently I waited for the lotion to go to work and sooth my itchines, but it only got worse and she had left for work. So here I am - flailing and writhing in the floor - just like the dog, although he must find it more civil when he does it because he was looking at me like I was possessed.

Anyway, I spent most of the morning on tuesday either in the shower or in the tub - I knew this would not speed up the healing process but it would give me relief for a short while. My wife stopped by the store on the way home and talked to the pharmacist, she told here everything we had tried and only had one suggestion left - Calamine Lotion. I had my doubts that it would work but after getting a pretty good layer on my back - the itching began to subside, not totally but at least it had become tolerable.

So the moral of the story today kids??? Always wear sunscreen or you will pay!!!!