I don’t know why
this is, but it happens every time I go.On my first trip to the Seminole
State – a high school spring break jaunt – I left a pair of tennis
shoes under a bed in a hotel room.On my second stint – a brief layover before my brothers and I left for a
cruise – I fell asleep in the airport and awoke to find my shoes stolen,
although my laptop, wallet and video camera were untouched.I’m generally a pretty organized guy, yet
when it comes to shoes and Florida, I seem to attain a nutty professor
level of absent-mindedness.[1]
Driven and Determined
Thus, I was
determined not to lose anything as I dipped down into Gator Nation for a third
time.Twenty-eight states into my
48-state road trip, I was having a hard enough time not losing my mind.This was the part of the trip when the
novelty of being on the road and doing something grand had subsided and was
being replaced by acute boredom and a growing realization that 12,000 miles really
IS too far for one person to drive alone and retain their sanity.This, coupled by my recent near-breakup
with my girlfriend[2]had me desperately searching for
anything resembling an “adventure,” just to fight the loneliness and keep me
from throwing myself in front of oncoming traffic.
I settled on Pensacola[3],
and rolled into the sleepy town just after dusk.Finding no one around, I decided my “adventure” in Florida
would be to sleep right there on the empty beach, something I’d never done
before and a far superior alternative to dozing in my sweltering Taurus.
Sand-Angels Are Useless Against
Evil Jellyfish
I slept soundly
that night directly on the warm, bleach-white sand, contently dreaming that I’d
finally picked the perfect “road trip” thing to do – that is, until I was
awoken at 6 a.m. by a four-wheeler roaring by about three feet from my
head.Of the many possible risks I
assumed when I decided to sleep on a beach, I admit I hadn’t anticipated this
one.
I climbed out of
my panicked sand-angel and, adrenalized, figured I’d try to recover the morning
with a calming dip in the ocean.
I was promptly
stung by a jellyfish.
At least I think
it was a jellyfish[4].I don’t have a particular phobia of
malevolent ocean creatures, but there’s something deeply disconcerting about
something squishy squirming its way up around your inner thigh and then stabbing
you.Especially when you’re just
bouncing innocently up and down in four feet of cloudy water.[5]
Whatever it was,
it hurt like crazy, and by the time I scrambled out of the water, a nice
four-inch blotch had already appeared on the front of my pasty-white thigh.As I raced across the sand, the only
things I could think of were a) whether or not jellyfish were poisonous, and b)
if so, what was I going to do
about it. For some reason the notion
that jellyfish poison might be counteracted with urine kept tumbling through my
mind, but I couldn’t remember if this was for jellyfish or snakebites.[6]
I jumped into the Taurus,
sopping wet and swelling, and peeled out to find the nearest hospital.
I was promptly
pulled over by a cop. Of course.
The officer took
forever to saunter up to my window as I sat there, shirtless, wet and
panicked.I should have been worried
the cop would approach with his gun drawn, thinking he’d pulled over a
half-drowned, naked meth addict.But mostly I was just worried that my leg was going to fall off.
Children are our future.
Do they know how to cure jellyfish stings?
The tall cop leaned
down, resting his elbows casually on my open window.“Kind of in a hurry there, aren’t ya?” he drawled from under
a bushy, brown moustache.
Despite the fact
that my quad was beginning to inflate like a pink balloon, I decided to argue
that I hadn’t been speeding.“Sorry, I thought the sign said 30, and I thought I was under.I have this rule about speeding.[7]Also, I’ve been stung by a jellyfish.”
The cop did not
seem concerned.“It’s a school
zone, this time of the morning.Limit drops to 20. You
didn’t see the yellow sign?”
“I’m sorry, I must
have missed it,” I said.My leg
was throbbing, as if a small techno rave was forming inside it.“Listen, is there a hospital somewhere
around?“
“Also, fine’s
doubled in a school zone,” the cop continued.“Lots of kids around.”He glared at me, accusingly, as if I’d been trying to run kids down on
purpose.
“I’m sorry, I
didn’t see any kids.But
seriously, is-“
“LOTS of kids
around,” the cop persisted, staring at me.“You always drive like that, when there’s kids around?”
I looked up at
him, not sure what answer he was looking for.I wondered if he could smell the combination of fish and
fear wafting up from the Taurus.“But I’ve been stung by a jellyfish!And isn’t it summer?”
“Summer
school.Aren’t as many kids as
usual,” he admitted.“But they’re
there, alright.Lemme look at your
leg.”
Confounded, I
showed him my leg, hesitant to mention that 6:30 a.m. seemed a bit early for
summer school.The cop frowned, regarding
my puffy limb for a moment.He
popped his gum.
“It’s not too
bad.I’ll be back.”
Without another
word, the cop went back to his car, and I was left in the Taurus, leg burning,
salt beginning to soak into my now-dry skin.Another eternity went by as I waited for the officer to return,
presumably with a vial of jellyfish antidote that every Pensacola cop carries
in their car.Instead, he came
back with a paper.
“I’m giving you a warning,” he
said.“But if I catch you speeding
through another school zone, I’m gonna drop the hammer on you.”He handed me the paper.“Children are our future.”
I didn’t know what
to say.“Um… thanks?” I managed.“But honestly, do I need to go to a
hospital, or something?Can you
die of a jellyfish sting?”
“I told you, it’s
not bad,” said the cop, standing to his full height.“You may not even have been stung by a jellyfish.”
And he was gone.
I started the Taurus
and headed west.I called Craig,
my cancer-curing doctor friend in St. Louis, and he assured me that no, I was
not going to die of a jellyfish sting.[8]After an hour or so my leg stopped
throbbing, and the swelling went away.As I entered Mobile
and started looking for something interesting to do in Alabama, it occurred to
me that I’d gotten my adventure in Florida after all.And, for a few hours at least, I hadn’t been the least bit
lonely.
And that’s when I
realized I’d left my shoes on the beach, back in Pensacola.
“The Jellyfish Cop” is an excerpt from “48 States in 48 Days,” a
book by Paul Jury about a road trip he took to all 48 continental states once
he graduated college and realized he had no plan.
[1] Perhaps it has something to do with partying too much
every time I visit Florida. Nah.
[2] Who was not
enthusiastic about my dodging her for eight weeks.
[3] Why Pensacola seemed like a good place for adventure,
I don’t recall; I guess I’d recently seen the movie “Contact” and thought maybe
I’d see Jodie Foster, or some aliens.
[4] As a Minnesota boy, being stung by random crap in the
ocean was not something I had a lot of experience with.
[5]And it’s not like I was even attacking their jellyfish nest! Though this
vengeful thought would occur to me later.
[6]
And the idea of laying sideways on the Pensacola sand peeing on myself seemed
oddly inappropriate, even for someone who’d just slept on a beach.
[7] The rule was: I already had four of them on my record,
and if I got one more, the Minnesota DMV had promised to tear up my license,
something that seemed quite detrimental to a
48-state road trip.
[8] Did I
mention it felt like my leg was going to fall off?
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