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Comment by llamaLord | Hacker News Reader

There's an urban legend in Australia about a bloke that went camping once, had to take a shit in the bush, and didn't have any dunny-role.

Poor guy grabbed a handful of Gympie-gympie that was on the ground next to him and proceeded to wipe his ass with it.

Legend says he ended up topping himself a few hours later to escape the pain.

Whether it's true or not... Fuck only knows. We do like making shit up... Especially when it makes Yanks uncomfortable ;)

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We have the same urban legend in the US about poison ivy, but I actually knew a kid who made the mistake.

Poison ivy is certainly nowhere near this description of gympie-gympie, but the persistent itch is certainly unrelenting enough to cause pretty severe distress. I got a small touch of it on my forearm one time. Didn't even know I had brushed up against the plant, so I didn't perform the recommended clean up. Just from absent mindedly scratching, I ended up spreading the oil over almost my entire forearm and onto my leg. I barely slept for two weeks.

I got one worse for you. The home that I lived in when I was 16 years old had a chain link fence in the backyard that was covered in poison ivy. I got the bright idea do douse some of it in gasoline and light it on fire to get rid of it.

Bad idea.

The smoke carries the oils and if you get in it, you're going to be in for a bad time.

A friend attacked a patch of undergrowth with a string trimmer (“weed eater”). She was wearing shorts and the pulped fragments of poison ivy splattered all over her legs and arms. Imagine putting poison ivy in a blender, then pouring it on yourself.

I knew someone who went hiking in Northern California. He was having problems with hay fever and his eyes were very itchy so he grabbed a leaf and rubbed it on his eyes. It felt good initially but then began itching and burning and his eyelids swelled up so he couldn’t see. It turns out he had grabbed poison oak leaves (a relative of poison ivy) and rubbed them on his eyes. It was not a fun time.

It select parts of the States/Canada you might also reach for Devil's Club, which would be a huge mistake.

It's unlikely since he would've immediately felt the pain when grabbing the leaf in the first place.

From the article: the pain peaks after 20-30 minutes.

In the video the pain looks nearly instant. It just gets even worse over time.

I knew the local fauna in Oz was composed of a hundred different death machines, but I never thought about the fact that the flora could also be scary.

As a yank, it's always been believed that everything in Aussieland wants to either kill you or make life supremely uncomfortable.

Eh I mean the US has its fair share of snakes and spiders, crocs/gators, plus bears, coyotes, and other large animals which Australia doesn't have which are far more scary than any insect IMO. I guess the oceans are worse with sharks and box jellies, and some rivers have bull sharks. But Australia and the US have more in common wrt deadly flora and fauna than most would like to admit.

I guess my point is that, because of the previous land bridge, the rest of the world really evolved together.

Australian ecology, from what I understand, really evolved in isolation for quite some time.

Oh 100%... Our shit is weird. See my other comment about the half-duck, half-beaver, knife-weilding platypus if you want "weird".

dunny-role

topping himself

The English Language is definitely different around the world.

“Topping himself” is definitely a common phrase in the UK too

I googled it so you don’t have to: it means to commit suicide.

"Skeleton on the Dunny" is a great book!

To be fair, I did try to layer it on a bit for the purpose of that story haha

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