I have a riverbirch tree in my front yard whose branches are growing against the house and in desperate need of getting cut back. Needless to say, my volunteer yard crew has failed to step up, so this morning I decided to get it done.

Armed with one of those tree lopers that guarantees not to get stuck and easy to cut branches up to 2 1/2 inches thick, I saunter out with my mp3 player and start chopping.

Well, at least I try to start chopping. The thing kept getting stuck. When I was successful in cutting a branch, I'd look down to keep it from falling on my face. I realized that already I had blisters on five of my fingers - I'm such a delicate flower...

Suddenly, I felt something down my shirt. A crawly sort of thing. I start wiggling and shaking my shirt. I still feel it crawling on my back. So in the front yard, I yank off my shirt (I'm wearing a bra) and I'm brushing my back. I look up and there is my creepy next door neighbor standing in full view, watering his yard. He just smiled.

I shook off my shirt and my back and put it back on and tried to continue with as much dignity as possible.

The tree looks like a 3yr old did it. But at least the branches aren't against the house anymore and my neighbor has gotten his oogling for the morning until I go out on the back deck and suntan topless this afternoon.

Doc update: saw six different dermatologists yesterday. They took 5 biopsies of the blistered area. None of them could explain it. Some still say it's shingles. Others say no. Some suggested some medical jargon that was over my head. I still have new blisters appearing and running a fever for 22 days straight, but they are stopping the antibiotics and tell me to wait 2 weeks for the biopsy results. I love this medical system.

P.S. I'm off to return this piece of shit tree loper from Lowe's.