Bugs-2 / Z-0

I found this on my walk the other day.

Kristi and I go out to the beach almost every morning. She runs and I walk. Usually.

Sometimes I wait until she's out of sight and I sit down and draw firetrucks and stingrays in the sand.

But I WAS walking when I found a lobster leg on the beach. I looked around, finding more legs, and eventually came across the object in the pic above.

It's a section of the exoskeleton from a Spiny Lobster's tail. They're usually brown, but this one was bleached out by the sun, revealing all of these beautiful pastel pinks and purples. I thought it was pretty, so I picked it up to show Kristi.

The membrane underneath the tail, as well as the swimmerettes, were intact, so I know it wasn't a human that ate this lobster. It probably washed ahore dead, and was hollowed out by the ghost crabs that keep the beach clean.

Either way, my taking it must have disturbed the Animalian Spirits, causing them to release the Arthropodic Fatwah that has plagued me since.

You remember the KILLER BEE sting, right? Well, that felt like an Angel's Kiss compared to the FIRE ANTS that attacked me at the beach on Sunday.

I had picked up a piece of coral and placed it on our beach blanket to keep it from getting blown away by the Christmas Breezes. I laid down to read, and about 4.2 nanoseconds later I was on fire.

I don't remember if the realization that I was covered with ants preceded my hellish screetching, but both were of no comfort to those around me.


I ran into the water for relief, which never came.

Within about 5 minutes, I had 30-some half-inch welts all over my arms, all of which felt like a cigarette was being pressed into them. Hard.

I jabbered about "mortal f'ing pain" until Kristi took me home. I spent the evening whimpering into my Chana Masala until bedtime, telling Kristi to look at my arms no less than 50 times.



When I started to tell her how it felt, she smirked and told me to save my energy, she'd just read about it on the blog.

I think I'll leave a banana peel in her bed so she can have her own Fire Ants story.

Anyway, I'm taking the Lobster Shell back to the beach tonight. Hopefully it will reverse whatever bad Crustacean-juju is vexing me.... I'll keep you posted.