Sam Venable 

Department of Irony

Here’s another reason to worry about global warming: It’s going to make poison ivy even nastier than it is today.

At least that’s the scenario envisioned by scientists studying the “greenhouse effect” created when massive amounts of fossil fuels are burned. Seems the resulting increase in carbon dioxide will provide ideal growing conditions for the plant we love to hate.

According to a story in Science News magazine, researchers at Duke University erected elevated pipes so trees and other plants growing in test plots could bathe in either (1) your basic, average, plain-brown-wrapper air or (2) air that was laced with extra carbon dioxide. Because plants take in carbon dioxide during the process of photosynthesis, it stands to reason they might prosper from additional doses.

Yowzers! Did they ever, especially the nefarious P.I.

Poison ivy treated with extra carbon dioxide grew at more than twice the rate of its noxious cousins subsisting on standard air. All told, poison ivy’s growth spurt was almost five times greater than other plant species!

Hold on. The picture gets worse.

Researchers discovered that “urushiol”—the oily substance within poison ivy which causes so much misery to humans—turned out to be 30 percent more potent in the plants enhanced with carbon dioxide.

So what does this bode over the next half-century if carbon dioxide levels increase exponentially as expected? It means we all need to grow sharper fingernails, for starters. Also, stock up on backscratchers, sandpaper, metal files, wood rasps, and other articles of abrasion.

Speaking as an expert who never met a chigger bite, ’skeeter welt, seed tick infestation, or poison ivy rash that couldn’t be improved with vigorous clawing, I say let the digging begin.

Oh, sure; I’ve heard medical advice to the contrary. You have, too. Doctors and mothers have preached it for years: “Don’t scratch that bite, welt, rash, and infestation. That’ll just make it worse, or else you’ll get it infected. Just put some of this (insert name of preferred ointment here) on it and leave it alone.”

Horsepuckey! What good is skin irritation if you can’t fight back? I say go down swinging. Or scratching, as the case may be.

Ten summers ago, I managed to attract the mother lode of seed ticks shortly before we left for vacation at the beach. Both of my ankles and lower legs were absolutely covered with red welts. They itched like a fireball.

But one day after a dip in the ocean, I discovered the perfect remedy: Walk ashore, coat your wet skin with fine powdery sand, sit down on your beach towel, rub your ankles and legs violently against each other, then run back into the ocean and let the brine sting away at your bloody flesh.

What? You say that’s about the nuttiest “medical advice” you ever heard? Yeah, that’s what my wife also was saying several weeks later, as the abrasion scabs up and down my legs finally started to heal.

But, boy-howdy, it sure felt good at the time!

Sam Venable is an author, stand-up comedian, and humor columnist for the Knoxville (TN) News Sentinel. He may be reached at sam.venable@outlook.com.