A Case of the Cold Pricklies

The prickle instigator. I've said it before: thank goodness he's so cute.

Distracted by the conversation and a table-full of friends who had gathered for the First Annual Neighborhood Dessert Buffet, I didn’t pay much attention to the ruckus emanating from upstairs. “Oh, just ignore that,” I actually said to the neighbor who had raised an eyebrow in concern. “This is just the way it is with boys.”

Famous last words.

Apparently, while I’d been enjoying my second slice of peach pie, The Great Cactus Chase was unfolding upstairs, a game which to the best of my knowledge involved much dashing, as well as a fair number of succulents, in particular the beavertail cactus.

Suffice to say, Rowan ended up with two palms full of prickles. And not just any old prickles, mind you, but microscopic prickles undiscernable to the naked eye.

Hundreds of them.

In each hand.

Let me save you some trouble, should for some reason a Great Cactus Chase ever take place in your home. Don’t bother trying to remove the prickles with tweezers. Or soap and water. Or packing tape.

Glue, it turns out, is the most viable prickle-removal solution.

As I reclined blissfully ignorant and sugar-stupefied at the table, Brad was at the computer Googling “cactus prickle removal.” This is how he learned about the glue method, which works as such:

1. Placate sniffling, prickle-infested boy with lollypop.
2. Pour Elmer’s Glue over prickle-infested zone.
3. Encourage sniffling, lollypopped boy to hold hands steadily out in front of him and away from all fabric furniture and clothing for 15 minutes.
4. Remind boy once every 6.3 seconds that his hands are in fact covered in a layer of glue and therefore he should not touch fabric furniture or clothing. 
5.  Remind boy once every 9.5 seconds that his hands are in fact covered in a layer of glue and that he should also refrain from touching hair, mouth, nose, ears and nether regions.
6. When glue has properly dried, gently peel thin layers from palms and deposit into trash can.
7. Repeat.

For the record, embedded microscopic beaver tail cactus prickles hurt like heck. I know this because while the second glue treatment was drying on Rowan’s hands, I tidied up the boys’ rooms  … which, turns out, were infested with cactus prickles.

[Insert cursing here]

I refused the glue treatment {do I really have the time to sit around with gluey hands all night?}, but I shouldn’t have. Because let me tell you this: once beavertail cactus prickles get attached, they’re going nowhere fast. A week later, we’re still pulling prickles out of our skin.

[And while this post has nothing to do with faith except perhaps to note that God did very well indeed when he created prickles as the defense mechanism for cactus, there is a moral to this story: Parents, do not let your children play with cactus].

Have you ever had a run-in with a cactus or another similarly weird situation?

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