A Rash Decision

The Girls and I went out to grab a cache a couple of days ago. The first attempt was a bust; we didn’t feel like tracing over every inch of a mildly overgrown mulberry tree for a micro. There was a second one around the block, a regular, that seemed more promising. We parked at the front of an apartment complex, walked down the block to cross over the creek running alongside, and then started poking into the edges of a patch of woods looking for it. It gave us quite a chase. I went in at one place, but couldn’t find it. I went around to take a less obvious route into the wood while my younger daughter, being more nimble than me, pushed further into where I had started, causing us to meet in the middle. My older daughter followed me, but more wisely opted not to follow me too far in. We looked but found nothing and eventually decided to call off the search and go for easier prey; we didn’t need to be victims of the sunk cost fallacy. I backed out the way I entered and then walked back around to help the younger one get out through the trees when I spotted the ammo can chained to the foot of a tree, farther off GZ than expected. The description of the cache warned to watch out for thorns (no, I didn’t read it, my older daughter did) so I did my best to avoid the ones between me and my quarry. Unfortunately, I wasn’t entirely successful, resulting in some poking like I hadn’t experienced in a while. But I was happy to brave the thorns so I could hand the log out to the Girls. No reason they need to get poked by thorns if I can do it instead, no? They signed, I signed, then I replaced it all and made my way back out of the wood. Victory requires no explanation, right?

Yesterday, however, I woke up feeling kind of itchy on my arms and legs in certain places. Coincidentally, they were places where I had been poked by thorns. It’s not the first time this has happened, of course. I’m not exactly an allergy machine or anything, but I get some rashes when I get poked enough. That hasn’t happened for a while because I usually don’t go into woods that thick anymore and, when I do encounter thorns, I usually go very slowly and deliberately to avoid them or control my contact with them. I guess this time I didn’t do a good enough job. So I’ll be mildly discomforted for a couple more days as the bumps cease to swell and the rashes abate. Was it all worth it? I want to say NO, but my years of caching and my expectations of continuance belie that answer. And besides, it’s nothing that an antihistamine and some lotion can’t fix.