Antipruritic: (n) a type of drug used to relieve itching.

Life is a farce.

The sooner you realize it and become comfortable with the idea, the more proficient you will be at achieving your goals and the less resentful toward the overall comedy.

Let’s look at the basic rollout:

When we’re young enough to have energy and the passion to drive us to participate, we’re too stupid to do anything of quality. After we survive the “season of stupidities,” we gain the intelligence to make better choices, but we’re too exhausted to enact them.

Isn’t that hilarious? It’s an invitation from the Creator to relax and not take things too seriously.

Because when I was twelve years old, I got naked with a bunch of my friends, and slid down the bank of a creek in Oklahoma into an ice-cold pond, to skinny-dip.

The water was so cold that there was no room for ridicule because all of our genitalia disappeared. It was a blast.

But since we were young, inexperienced and mentally flawed, we had no idea of the local terrain, vegetation or possible perils.

So about three days later, I discovered–on my bummer side–that I had contracted poison sumac. I didn’t even know what sumac was. (Actually, I would have been happy to go through the rest of my life dwelling in that ignorance.)

It itched like poison sumac sounds like it would, and since it was on my backside, it had an inclination to “go west, young man,” and creep up to my more non-scratchable areas.

I needed to do something.

I tried every over-the-counter antipruritic–and the relief lasted only the length of time it took to smear it on, pull on my underwear and take two steps.

Nothing helped.

Apparently, this particular strain of sumac was well-versed in medical treatment.

After numerous attempts to relieve my scratchiness, one day I found a huge clump of ice which was left over from a fishing trip, where the catch of the day was kept frigid.

A thought came to my mind. If no one was looking, perhaps I could pull down my underwear and sit on the ice.

So I did.

At first it stung. Then it burned.

But when it froze, I found God.

It was a little embarrassing to go around my tiny village trying to acquire large chunks of ice, but it was the only thing that brought me any sense of contentment, and kept my “sumacian” enemy from attacking the neighbors.

It took about two weeks–but it finally went away.

I think it’s safe to say, I put that one on ice.

Thank you for enjoying Words from Dic(tionary) —  J.R. Practix