Unlucky in the Ocean
Last week was a first. I’ve swam in the ocean numerous times. But last week was the first time I’ve ever been stung by a jellyfish. Ouch! We were in the water for only a few minutes when we all got zapped by one of those dreadful creatures. We made our way back to beachhead, nursed our wounds and complained about a day gone awry. Our legs had varying degrees of redness and the numbness took about 20 – 30 minutes to subside. And then we began to watch others have their turn. And then it became fun. It was sort of like a sporting event. We sat in our lounge chairs and watched uninformed fresh meat take their happy faces into the Atlantic Ocean. You could tell they were humming a song in their head. Probably Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah or Louis Armstrong’s What a Wonderful World. It would be only a manner of minutes and then the theme song would change to the soundtrack from Jaws. You’d see those same people running to the beach for survival. At no time did we tell them what they were in for. Early on, my dad said to my laughing brother, “where’s your compassion?” to which Lance responded, “I’m on vacation.”
Pretty soon, it became our favorite activity on the beach. Others were engaged in different activities. Fathers and sons were playing catch. Kids were flying kites. Teenagers were building colossal sandcastles. The energetic were running their dogs or biking on the hard-packed sand. And there we were, watching people get stung by jellyfish. In time, we placed bets on who would be next.
“OK, there are four newcomers over there to the left. I’ll pick the man with the white hat.”
“Ok, I’ll take the pale-skinned guy to his left.”
“Give me the lady in the blue swimsuit. I like my odds. She’s farther out than the others.”
“I like my odds. My guy has more body mass for a jelly fish to strike.”
It was such fun. Kind of like a poor man’s running of the derby. I felt like singing My Old Kentucky Home and sipping on a mint julep.
And it was educational. We learned a lot about the human race. As much as I hate to admit it, women tended to suffer the throbbing pain better than the men did. One burley middle-aged guy got nailed by a jellyfish and he was bobbing back to the lifeguard so fast he looked like a giant top-water jig. In contrast, one suffering woman, who had delivered a tribe of babies no doubt, she slowly walked to the beach and then casually looked down at what had just happened.
We also learned how to assess the strength of a relationship by observing how couples interact. For instance, we saw one lady who was out much further than her husband/boyfriend/friend. She got stung and we knew it. We saw her initial reaction. But then, she walked back to the beach, walked right past her companion, and DIDN’T EVEN TELL HIM. Minutes later, he fell victim to the same plague and let out a war hoop louder than the deafening sound of the ocean waves. For whatever reason, she decided not to spare him the same fate that befell her. One can only guess at the reasons. Maybe, like Custer, he had it coming. Or maybe, like my brother, her “give a damn” was on vacation.
