Attack!

I survived my first ocean attack today.

The sea was angry this morning my friends, like an old man trying to return soup at a deli. We were doing our weekly swim in Santa Monica and I had made it past the buoy and turned north for the voyage up the coast. Little did I know what was lurking in the depths below. The cold, murky waters obscured my vision so that by the time I finally saw the Savage Beast it was too late; this was his dominion, and I was an intruder. I tried to turn away from the demonic minion of Neptune but my fate was sealed.

And that's pretty much when the jellyfish stung me. It sort of felt like a pin cushion being thrown at my forearm, only with all the points sticking outward. It was not a terrible pain, but it did sting a bit. And then the itching started. Not severe, but constant and annoying. Staying in the water didn't help.

It's funny how your mind likes teasing you. As I noticed how far out I was from shore, in the back of my mind I was thinking "hmmm... now is a bad time to find out if I have allergic reactions to jellyfish stings." After a while, my arm started getting tired, and I wondered: is my arm weakening because of the poisonous toxins surging through my bloodstream? Or was it tired because, dude, you're swimming in the freaking ocean? I may never know.

I finished the swim (well, most of it, I cheated a bit and cut in a little early) and went to the lifeguard to get something for the itching. I was hoping he'd have some kind of emergency kit which he'd open up, pull out a special foil-wrapped cloth and tell me to rub briskly for 5 minutes. Instead, he grabbed a beat-up spray-bottle with a piece of masking tape that read "jellyfish" and squirted my arm. It's a diluted vinegar mixture. It did stop the itching for a bit, but it wasn't completely gone for about 2 hours.

My advice? Stay out of the ocean. The Beasts have sampled human flesh, and surely they will be coming for more.