Day 131: Ambushed!

Talk about a beach day gone horribly wrong.

Jake, Jenn, Dana, Emma, Caitlin and I all went to Bonita Beach for a beach day. Packed a nice lunch, got our suntan on, brought some floaty thingies.

We're not in the water even ten minutes before disaster strikes. We're joking around when suddenly Emma starts saying "Ow, ow, ow." She comes toward the rest of the group, a smile on her face. "Paiiiiiiiin," she says, still smiling. I laugh and tell her to stop faking it. "Jellyfish..." she says between gasping breaths, "jellyfish... stung me... owwwwww."

Eventually it became clear that she wasn't faking. A panic started slowly spreading among us, and soon we were all darting toward the shore. We spread out as we swam, so surely some of us would get through the water unscathed, right?

I was the next one to get stung. I felt a tingling sensation in my left arm as something wrapped around, a small electric shock. All of a sudden that small tingling turned to OH MY GOD I THINK I MIGHT DIE. My arm became useless as an intense burning pain ran through it, so I kinda just sat on the water like a lame duck, too consumed by the pain.

Dana had been right next to me and kept yelling at me, "Swim faster!" Eventually she gave up on me and swam past me. Karma would catch up to her though, she was the next to be stung. I look to my left and Jake is pretty much just swimming in circles like a chicken with his head cut off, right in the middle of the jellyfish sting juice. He's just spinning around screaming in pain as he gets stung on all sides. It's the funniest and most horrifying thing I have seen in some time. I use my good arm to slowly and pathetically get to shore, and finally we all arrive on the sand, but it's too late. The damage has been done. We've all been badly stung, except for Jenn, who somehow manages to avoid even the smallest sting.

On the shore we run into other victims of the jellyfish epidemic. We exchange war stories, and then we're told that rubbing wet sand all over the stings will help dull the pain. So we did just that. A bunch of college kids rubbing sand all over each other and screaming like crazy. We must have been quite a sight. And also a good indication that no one else should go in the water, lest they share a similar fate.

That's probably the last beach day for a while.

Underneath my skin you crawl
Spread your toxic poison
And even with the sand
we cannot wholly escape your clutch

Song: "I Woke Up Near the Sea" by Lydia. Pretty applicable song, all things considered.