This is what comes from helping the hubby.
Formerly, these were my favorite early spring/fall outdoor work pants. Formerly. Can you see why they will no longer be my favorites? Those are devil thorns. I don’t know what kind of worthless, pestilent weeds they are, but they are nothing short of pure EVIL!!!
What started this little adventure was the natural spring that runs into our pond. For the past several years, the pond has needed repair and we finally bit the bullet and are in the process of having it dug out and fixed. So, in order to save a little cash, my husband thought it would be a good idea to pump out the excess water that had accumulated in the base of what had already been dug out.
“You’re going to need your rubber boots for this”, he said.
I’ve come to know that when he mutters those words, I’m going to be completely covered in mud. At this point, helping was not on my to-do-list, but because I am the dutiful wife that I am, I pulled on my rubber boots and started to help load the truck. Please don’t judge me based on the color selection of my pants. They were a gift after the fire and because it was one of the “oldest” items I owned, they were the most worn. I think their actual age may have only been about 5 years, but that’s still new in my book.
So we headed off to the pond to drain out all the extra water that had accumulated there. The problem was, only part of the pond had been drained and the part that was still filled with silt, was covered in weeds.
“No biggie, they’re just weeds”, I thought.
I spoke too soon. After just a few steps, wrestling the large, flat hose that would be used to drain the water from the underground spring, I noticed a stinging and burning in both my legs. I looked down and saw those stickers – EVERYWHERE! “This is not going to be good,” I decided, while wishing upon every star in the midnight sky that I had chosen jeans versus my favorite, purple comfy pants!
“Looks like you found a few stickers,” my loving husband said as he looked me up and down.
“You don’t need to state the obvious. My legs are on fire right now”.
“Oh, you’re fine. I think I only see about 10”, he joked. “You know, you wore the wrong pants for this”.
“Of course I did. How was I to know there were going to be devil thorns in the pond!”, I yelled.
“You’ll be fine”, he says. “Here, take this hose and head toward the dam.”
“Fine”, I said as I gingerly started heading toward the dam, thorns poking me with every step I took.
A few minutes later, as the hubs was unsuccessfully trying to prime the pump, my job was to hold the hose down by the ground to keep the water from escaping. In order to do this, I had to squat down and every single sticker that was stuck to my pants was now stabbing my upper legs.
Long story short, the pump didn’t work, so all my squatting and thorn-sticking was in vein. When we made it back to the house, I immediately dropped my britches in the laundry room and headed to our closet to get a clean pair of pants. As I looked down at my leg, I could see a bright red rash curving around from the front of my thigh all the way around to my hip. I’ll spare you that photo…it wasn’t pretty.
Just to put things in perspective with regards to the pain from the rash that had developed, remember
the feeling you had as a kid when you were running and fell and scraped all the hide off your knees and then got them wet? Well, that’s exactly how painful this rash was when I took a shower! Oh, how I despise those devil thorns!!!
And, if you were wondering how long it took to get those thorns out of my pants, you’ll have to keep wondering. I ended up throwing them out. My husband spent over an hour taking thorns out of his jacket and my pants had a lot more thorns in them than his jacket, so I had to bid them farewell.
Note to self: Start wearing jeans whenever the hubby says he needs help, even if they aren’t considered “old”.
