If you listen to this week’s episode, you heard about me getting cactus spines between my fingers. As I said, there is a story behind that.
I grew up in a home where we were forever eating plants you could find outside, bugs, animals, and, yes, even worms. I remember eating a prickly pear cactus as a child, although I do not remember what it tasted like. I say that, so you know I was familiar with the plant.
Okay, now, onto the story. A couple of years after eating the cactus, I was biking home from school one day, around the age of eight or nine. Yes, by that time, I was a lock-key baby. I left home after my mother went to work to get myself to school and came home to an empty house.
Back to the cactus. I did remember eating it before and had just heard on TV a few nights before about someone getting cactus spines in them from falling on a cactus. Like every rational kid, I wanted to get a better look. I hopped off the bike and headed over. They are flat-shaped, and upon inspecting them, I noticed large groups of spines but room between them.
So I picked up one of them that had fallen off the cactus. No, I don’t know how. That was my big mistake! I was careful not to touch the large spines as I looked the whole thing over. I turned it a few times in my hands, finally got bored, and put it back. I felt no different and headed back to my bike.
It was only when I tried to grab the handlebars that pain shot up my hands. I looked at the handlebars, saw nothing, and tried again—same pain. I finally looked at my hands and noticed they were covered in spines. Hundreds of tiny spines that I had not noticed on the plant while handling it. I didn’t know what else to do, so I walked my bike home with my wrists.
Things got worse when I got home and tried to get inside. You see, reaching into my pocket to get the key was unbearable and impossible. That was also the time I learned there were spines between all of my fingers. It was so painful I ended up sitting on the steps in front of my home and sobbing because it hurt, and I was a scared kid.
My very sweet neighbor, who had moved in just days before, saw me and came out to check on me. I told her what had happened, and she said she could help and invited me to her home. I followed her over, but when I got to her garage door, I suddenly realized I couldn’t go into a stranger’s home; I had just met her.
The poor, sweet lady was confused at first, but then she was very understanding. She told me to wait right there in her driveway and that she would be back. A minute later, she came back out with tweezers. She spent two hours pulling hundreds of spines from my hands. It was extremely sweet of her.
She was just finishing up, as my mom got home, and wanted to know what the heck I was doing at the neighbors when I should be home. She had to save me twice that day, once from cactus spines and once from a spanking.
Now you know prickly pear cactuses have big spines and little spines. Do not touch them with your bare hands!!