Can’t be that bad! We had them all over my yard when I was a kid. Our whole house in Phoenix was surrounded by the pink and the white variety. My parents and I used to work for hours cutting, and trimming, and disposing of the sappy things. I think I cut and bundled 1,000 tons of them. The leaves were big, green, irritating, and a pain. The branches and stalks dripped the white sap by the gallon. And the “wood” is surprisingly hard. No one knew it was poisonous, and the plants were COMMON!

My friends and I used to pick the small hard green pre-blossom pods, and use them for ammo in our BB guns. Get shot in the butt with one of those, and it puts a lively kick in your step, I’ll tell you. I’ve been shot about 200 times, and I appear to have survived.

Never drank the sap, but had gallons of it on me and my clothes. After trimming the bushes (which grew up to 20 ft tall), we used to go in and wash like maniacs, as I recall the sap was an irritant. Stinks too, as it dries.

And I am 55 today. One wonders how healthy I would be if I had not been exposed. Now I am a bit eccentric, but to say I am weird, or anything would be wrong.

Perhaps the gradual exposure over the years made me Oleander proof.

Today I live in Northern Ontario, where the Oleander, which likes a warm climate, cannot survive, although I once met an old Italian couple a few blocks away (they are also common in Italy) who managed to get a small potted pair, one white, one pink, to survive in the south windows of their volcanically hot home.

Pierre, Northern Ontario, Canada

Slightly surprised that lily of the valley, that archtypical spring flower — indeed sometimes called May Lily or May Bells, and (as Wiki tells us) traditionally sold on the street in France on May 1st — didn’t make this list, as all of it is highly poisonous. But when one stops to consider all the pretty garden plants that are poisonous it make one shudder to walk through a nursery!

The WORST eating experienc eof my life was with my first Krispy Kreme doughnut. It was a crazy chocolate thing we got at the drive-through window and I was super excited about it. I took the first bite, pulled the rest of the doughnut away from my mouth, and a cockroach jumped out right onto the floor of my dad’s car. I screamed and freaked out, it was horrifying.

They are EXTREMELY poisonous because they thrive on carbon monoxide. You will see them growing happily alongside southern California’s nastiest freeways, adorned in delicate pink or white blossoms, doing their best to gobble up toxic emissions.

*on a side note: while sitting around a campfire with several friends, I did have a big ol’ June bug land in my icy cold beer. The invader went unnoticed for a minute or two, stifled by cold Dos Equis or the near-drowning experience.

Absentmindedly, I reached for the beer and took a swig … … at which time the inebriated June bug vaulted to freedom.

Witnesses still recall the incident, and my manic dance around the campfire, with unabashed glee. The Park Rangers? Not so much.

One afternoon after a Pop Tart breakkie, I walked into the kitchen, grabbed a Pop Tart and stuffed it into my mouth. And it tickled. That’s when I actually looked at what I was eating; the ants had found and were swarming the Pop Tarts. Which meant I had a mouth full. Urgh.

You know, I totally forgot about that. Till I read this article.

I can remember a few good ones, actually.

Once, when I was 12, I was babysitting and got the kids and myself some glasses of chocolate milk. I sat down at the kitchen table to drink mine and looking into the glass as I was drinking I saw what I thought was a lump of chocolate powder. I stopped just in time to realize it was actually a cricket that had jumped in the glass!

When I was about three years old, my “best” friend (the things we let people talk us into) dared me to eat the anthill in my front yard, claiming I didn’t have the guts to touch the ants. I scooped up a handful of ant mound, ants and all, and ate the whole thing. Tasted like dirt, and it didn’t seem to hurt me. Good thing they weren’t fire ants! My mom has always mourned my lack of ability to avoid peer pressure :)

My last one is not quite as good, but still funny.
@Bryan: My current best friend has studied a lot of herbal medicine and made me a number of home remedies at one point, that I was storing in the pantry. My husband came home with a really bad cough from grad school one day, and I decided to help him out. I handed him a medicine dose cup with a teaspoon of Sundew extract in it (in an ethanol matrix). He thought it was cough syrup and swigged it down — only to find out that the alcohol was in the cup! Surprised the H*** out of him, but it definitely cleared up his cough 5 minutes later!

reCaptcha: potable source