The Story Of A Splinter

As most of you know, just over two months ago I went on a canoing trip on the Rio Grande with a bunch of well-intentioned investment bankers.

It was a great trip. We canoed 83miles were hailed on, stung nocturnally by real scorpions, camped in a streambed that became a stream, listened to a subset of four I-bankers retell endless stories about a common summer camp, and ate spam every morning for breakfast.

However without question our greatest triumph came on the morning of the 4th day. We camped by a beautiful "hot" spring. The quotation marks only denote the fact that the geothermal processes deep within the spring kept it at a wonderful 80degrees compared to the solarthermal process in atmosphere which kept everything else at an unbearable 95degrees.

Anyway the hot spring provided a literal oasis in the desert: you could drink from it, bath in it, or merely sit and relax and watch little fish come up and nibble sweat off your leg hairs. The water was so clear and the childhood camp stories so oft retold that this particular activity provided me with hours of entertainment.

Naturally the spring also provided a good source of water for the living elements of the desert. I saw a huge snake one morning when getting water. Later that evening a group of Mexicans wandered up and set-up camp. These Mexicans combined with the faint appearance of a trail on the other [American] side of the river, led us to wonder if this spring was the location of a major immigrant crossing.

A quick check in our guidebook revealed that, sure enough, we were camping right in the middle of the Immigration Highway. The spring was kind of like nature's version of a Flying J Travel Plaza.

As we had scheduled the following day off [rest day from canoing], a group of us decided to hike up the trail on the other side. Just up to the top of the ridge. It didn't look too hard from the campsite [see for yourself, pic on left] and we would get a chance to see what these immigrants were made of.

Well suffice it to say we were wrong. The first thing I learned was that those immigrants are made of a far hardier substance than I am. The second thing I learned was that their clothes must be made of a far hardier substance than mine as well.

By the end of the hike three out of four of our pants blew-out so badly they could never be worn again. By blow-out I mean that prickerbushes & thorns shredded them. A thorn would go in, you would walk forward and a long gash worthy of Freddy Kruger would appear. Fifteen or twenty of these and your pants would be "blown-out." This became especially unfortunate for the person walking behind me, since the site of my first major blow-out was straight down the length of my anal crevice. A great picture exists but I will spare the blog.

When our clothes were used up. It was onto the flesh.

Anyway it was the hardest hike of my life. And when I got back my legs were destroyed. Literally thousands of scratches, hours with a tweezer in the hot spring removing thorns and needles.

A few of which still haven't healed.

Which leads me back to Suburban Maryland. Four days ago, I was in the bathtub. Splashing around, reflecting back on the spring, our hike, and all those hours with a pair of tweezers - naturally I started poking at one of the unhealed wounds. It was round and felt tight, like there was a small acorn locked under the flesh. I squeezed at the acorn.

And up like a grass shoot, a splinter popped out. It had spent two months in my skin. And just slid straight up, poked its head out and looked around. Like a piece of pencil lead from one of those retractable pencils, maybe 1/2inch long.



Crazy!

Of course, when I recovered from my shock, I ran dripping from bath to take pictures of my splinter to share with all of you.