So since today is Friday and I didn't feel like going to the gym, I thought I would give swimming laps in my pool a try. It's bigger than the usual kidney-shaped pool, but still not quite the distance a lap lane would be. Athan had tried to get me to do it while he was here and I kept telling him I couldn't do any strokes because I don't have goggles. The reality is I am really bad at swimming laps and I was embarassed to have him see me struggle through it. But with him gone I thought today would be a great opportunity to give it a shot sans-audience, because Lucy doesn't judge me.
I hate opening my eyes underwater but I convinced myself it was for the good of my health, and was able to ignore the burn. Even though I can't maintain a straight line and sometimes don't lift my face up high enough to inhale air instead of water, I wasn't doing too bad. There has been a raft floating in my pool for like a week now because I am too lazy to put it back in the shed where we store our pool toys, and since me swimming was making big splashes, it started to float over to the half of the pool I was using as my "lane." I was really enjoying swimming laps but since I am out of shape I was starting to get tired after about 15 minutes. I decided to do just a few more and then give myself a break. From the shallow end I lifted my head up and saw the raft was exactly where I needed to turn on the wall of the deep end. I came flying at the raft at full speed and instead of hitting the wall with my left hand, I slammed it down on the raft, planning to push it away as I turned the rest of my body.
What happened what not what was planned. Instead of slamming down onto the raft, I slammed my hand down directly on top of a giant wasp. Of course I didn't know this at the time and when I jerked my hand up and my face out of the water to examine it, I expected to see two daggers sticking out of my palm and blood gushing into the water. What I actually saw was the nasty wasp, which I then drown out of hatred.
I probably set a new world record swimming back to the shallow end of the pool to get out, rhythmically chanting "fuck fuck fuck" the whole way. Only ONE month ago I was up visiting Athan when I stepped on top of a bee in his backyard and got stung on the bottom of my foot. Before this summer I hadn't gotten stung by anything since I was in sixth grade! My foot bee-sting bothered me for like 2 weeks after it actually happened, occasionally itching or swelling up for no reason.
Remembering my Back Yard Bee Sting Incident of 2009, I dried off and put the remainder of an onion Athan and I had bought onto my palm to stop the swelling. His mom had showed me the trick and it had helped a lot for my foot. The stupid bastard wasp must have stung me twice, if that is even possible, because it looks like I had 2 different stings about a centimeter from each other. I went to the bathroom and since the onion was offering no immediate relief, I was beginning to convince myself I was actually stung by a new poisonous insect and that the numbness I felt in my hand was actually the first sign of a heart attack. So I put the onion down on the counter and got into the shower so I could run hot water over my hand. While I was in there I was in a limbo between wanting to cry and wanting to puke, that's how bad my sting hurt. After about ten minutes, though, the swelling started to go down so I got out and put the onion back on, which helped even more.
I swear I am not usually that big of a baby but this was terrible. I hate insects. And of course now I am paranoid about bugs in the pool stinging me when I am not looking.
Moral of the story: Attempting to be healthy causes extreme pain and misfortune. Haha.
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