DeadpanAnn (old blogger version)

TH and I came back home late this afternoon. I wanted to have at least one more swim in the ocean before we left, so my sister, TH, and I went to the beach this morning around 11:00. The wind was blowing and the waves were a little higher than they have been. The water was still clear too. No jellyfish.

Unfortunately, jellyfish are not the only peril of the sea, as we were about to find out.

We spent a couple of hours playing in the waves, alternating who got to use the two boogie boards. At one point, a big wave came over me and TH. My sister was about 10 feet away. When we came up, both of us immediately felt something slapping into us in the water. We were a little disoriented from the wave, and both of us thought someone had thrown a handful of rocks or shells at us. We started looking around and saw that a school of flying fish was passing between us, and some of them were smacking into us! It was bizarre! Immediately after I realized what they were, I also noticed that there were about a zillion of these tiny little translucent fish around us. They were about an inch long, and you wouldn't even be able to spot them if they weren't moving in schools of thousands. One alone would be nearly invisible. They looked similar to this one, except smaller and creepier.

I have seen all sorts of little fish out there in the past, and I figured the flying fish might've been there to eat these little invisi-fish. We saw several groups of flying fish while we were out deep sea fishing on Tuesday, and my brother in law even caught one. Those are somewhat creepy too, but the ones that practically attacked us in the surf were different from the ones we saw out in the deeper water.

Anyway, we stayed out in the water for about an hour after we encountered the fish. When we got back to the condo, TH was the first to get in the shower. I had worn a pair of shorts over my bathing suit when I was swimming, and I didn't want to get the bed wet while I waited for him to come out of the bathroom. I dropped my shorts on the floor and then took off my bathing suit and sat on the edge of the bed. (Try not to picture me naked. I will not be held responsible for any psychological trauma that might result.) I noticed something on my leg that looked like a piece of grass or seaweed stuck to my skin. When I pulled it off, I realized that it was about 3 of those little fish we had seen. They were dead, and they were stuck to my skin. As if that's not gross enough, when I stood up to go drop them into the toilet, I realized that there were dozens, maybe hundreds more stuck to my skin in various places, but mostly where my shorts had been in contact with my waist. That's right. Handfuls of tiny, dead fish were squished to my skin.

Oh, I suppose there are worse things than realizing that you are covered in dead fish. Maybe like realizing you are covered in dead fish, you are screaming and attracting attention while naked and there's someone in the shower so you can't do the first thing that comes to mind, which is GET THEM OFF! I freaked a little the f*ck out. My sister was right outside the bedroom door, and she came in when I started squealing. When she saw me pulling handfuls of fish off my body, she freaked out too. The two of us went screaming down the hallway towards the other bathroom and about .05 seconds later we were taking a shower together for the first time since before we had pubes. We were pushing and shoving to get under the water, and the entire time this was going on my sister was gagging and trying not to puke, and I was going back and forth between choking back the urge to blow chunks and laughing unconfreakintrollably.

After I finally got out of the shower, I found that the pockets in the shorts I had worn were filled with the little fish. There were lots of them on the floor where I had taken my shorts off, and there was a trail of them down the hallway where I had run naked and screaming. My sister only had 1 on her, and TH didn't see any. I expected him to have a few too, because he was wearing swim trunks and my shorts seemed to be what trapped them.

It was, without doubt, the most f*cked up repugnant thing that has ever happened to me. Ever. In fact, I am getting a little creeped out thinking about it.

The ocean can kiss my ass.