Stinging Nettle; Appropriately Named

I had my first encounter with Stinging Nettle today and, wow, is it a nasty little weed. The weed presents itself as a humble little thing, easy to pull out of my potted basil. Then two seconds later I have a pounding headache, a throbbing and swollen finger, and me running inside to my husband to see if I'm going to lose my finger. It seriously took a few seconds for the little plant to render my finger unbendable and hard as a rock.

Now I sit here pecking at the keyboard with my good hand (my other hand wrapped around a Dora the Explorer ice pack) looking for the culprit so I will never let it touch me again. And here it is. Look at the spikes on that thing (yeah, I know it's magnified at least 87,000 times, but still)! Beware! There is a force out there trying to get me to stop pulling weeds. Then I look at the picture I took of my finger - LOL. Maybe if I magnified it 87,000 times it would look as bad as it feels :)