Dern Gulf of Mexico!!!

The BBQ Pit
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Okay, I’ve been working all summer long at a hamburger joint to pay for college in the fall. This is the first time that my family is all at home and we can go on vacation. I like fishing. We decided to go to the coast of Texas (Galveston) to fish out in the deep. It was a long drive, and we spent about 40 dollars for supplies and fishing liscenses for my brother and me. We went out on one of those rock jetties to fish in the gulf.

On my second freaking cast, my hook got snagged on some rock. I waded into the water to get it out, and this satanic body of water says to itself, “Here’s my opportunity to ruin Jonmarzie’s weekend!” It pulls my feet out from under me and I put my hands down to keep from landing butt first on the rocks under me. I got my legs cut up and a four-inch gash on my left hand. So I don’t get too graphic, I’ll just say I saw parts of my hand I don’t care to see ever again. So, I blew 40 bucks and ruined a day for an 8 hour wait in a hospital waiting room to get 13 stitches in my left hand.

Not only that, but I couldn’t play softball yesterday for my church. I was relegated to umpire. :rolleyes: This also might mean I can’t donate blood in a couple of days because of the antibiotics I’m on, which means I might not get the free t-shirt from the rock station in town who sponsors the blood drive. Not only that, but I have to have this bandage on my hand, and it’s getting quite hard to type. I can’t even open doors when I have something in my right hand. It hurts when I walk because of the cuts on my feet.

To top it off, my right shoulder hurts because of the tetnus shot. :mad:

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Based on your locations you have bigger problems to worry about than a giant gash in your hand. Sorry anyway. Nothing good ever comes of salt water. Broken front tooth (12 yrs. old). Busted ass in BVI (x2). Flipped a little cat with my dad (The Admiral, really) in Key West and waited maybe an hour for rescue (8 yrs. old). Almost ate it in Jamaica about a half dozen times on those famous damn falls. I guess that’s still fresh water.

Water is dangerous. I get in it over and over just to prove that point to the rest of you.

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You know, we had a day like that almost exactly two years ago this week. Went to a music festival 3 hours away. We should have gotten a clue from the parking attendants wearing knee-high rubber boots and the TWO tractors they had available to push cars out that were stuck in the mud. Needless to say, our car got stuck in the mud in the parking field before we could even get to a parking place; Papa Tiger got out to try to push it out while waiting for one of the tractors and stepped ankle deep in a fire ant mound. So we had to race 20 minutes to the nearest small town to find stuff to put on his HUNDREDS of fire ant bites. (He’s still got scars all over his foot from them. At least I had an asthma inhaler along if he’d had breathing trouble – that many fire ant bites could kill you!)

So we gave up and headed back home, without ever hearing a note of the music. And while I’m driving, he gets on the phone to tell his mom about his lovely day. I get distracted by his driving, and next thing you know there are blue lights in my rear view mirror. A $267 ticket for going 83 in a 60 mph zone. (The Cajun spirits that inhabit the Atchafalaya Basin HATE us; a month later, they caused Papa Tiger’s car to break down in the same place while returning from a business trip to Houston.) The young state patrolman who stopped us thought I was a weirdo for laughing over it until I told him our story. He laughed too, but kept writing the ticket.

We ended up driving six hours up there and back to end up doing nothing but eat dinner five minutes from our home. With nothing but seventeen million fire ant bites and a whopping speeding ticket to show for it.

Sometimes you just gotta laugh. Because otherwise it hurts too much!

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Never walk off a jettie

Don’t swim or surf near them

Danger.

In hindsight, you now know you should’ve just cut the line. Sorry about the injury, though. Sounds ghastly.

Next time you’re there to fish, take the ferry to Bolivar Peninsula, drive out from the ferry landing about 15 miles or so, turn right and then do some surf casting. A fishing experience of epic proportions. Watch out for jelly fish and sharks, tho.
One day, I waded out to a sand bar I had noticed about 100 yards (maybe more) off shore. I had to swim at one point to get to it, but, I could stand in knee deep only water on the sand bar and cast off of it. Man, did I catch a lot of fish that day. (Kept the fishies on a stringer, if you’re wondering. Used shrimp for bait.)

The next day, I did the same thing. But, I got in big trouble. I had caught a few fish, and I heard the indistinct call of my friend on shore. I couldn’t tell what he was saying, but I looked where he was pointing. In that little channel of deep water that I had to swim through to get to the sand bar were fins. :eek:

You got it. Shark. Then, another. And another. At one point, I counted 10. Sure, they probably weren’t too big. And maybe if I had tried, I might have been able to find out if the sand bar met the shore anywhere.

But, what I did was let loose of the fish on the stringer, threw my bait away, and found the highest part of the sand bar. Through amazingly vigorous yelling and exaggerated gestures, my friend indicated he was going for help. 30 minutes later, he came by in a boat with one of the locals and picked me up. Turns out they just happened to be at their beach house just a few miles away. Might not have been 30 minutes even. Felt like forever.

Then, we drove back to our beach camp, and spent the rest of the day drinking beer, eating fish of the grill (from the day before, kept on ice), and watching sharks.

Fun.

5

Drain that fucker. That’ll learn it!

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Oh, man, Galveston has always given me problems. One time in Cub Scouts, we went out there one weekend for a science lesson or something. I lost my balance one of the granite breakers and twisted my ankle. On a fishing trip there once, my uncle accidentally stuck me with a fishing hook.

More recently, a couple dorm buddies and I went out to Galveston after dark to fly kites on the beach. My kite string broke and my kite went flying somewhere behind the Hotel Galvez. Plus, while walking on the granite breakers I again lost my balance. No sprained ankle this time, but I scrapped up my stomach thanks to the belly-flop I did on the breaker. And, I lost my friend’s flashlight to the gulf when I impacted.

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I forgot to mention something else.

At the softball game, I got there a tad early to see if I could bat with one hand. I invited my brother to pitch a ball to me (it was a slow pitch game). He proceeds to wind up and do a cricket-esque bowl right at my face, and it was going fast. The bat was in my right hand, so I instinctively put up my left hand (the one with the stitches) to shield my face.

It broke the skin, but at least he didn’t hit the 13 stitches. Bleeding is not fun.

I forgave him, though.

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Damn, that is some rotten luck. I hope you get better really soon, Jonmarzie.

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Re: Dern Gulf of Mexico!!!

“…the Gulf Coast is the kingdom of monkeys, the land of clowns, ghosts and musicians…”

Eugene Walter wrote that in his 1954 novel, The Untidy Pilgrim.

It behooves all who don’t fall into one of the above catagories to proceed with caution on the Gulf Coast. Myself, I’m part clown, but mostly monkey. :slight_smile:

Better luck on your next trip.

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[ul][li] MN in the winter[/li][li] TX in the summer[/ul][/li]To me that seems to be in reverse order.

Wishing you a speedy recovery

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Thank y’all for your words.

kniz, you certainly aren’t the first to think I was a tad odd for going north for the winter and south for the summer.

The wound is healing, though, so that’s good. It hurts less! :smiley:

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This is the second time I’ve heard Galveston mentioned in a couple of days. Yours was more interesting as the first was just about the exploding fecal bacteria counts.

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Not only is this a band name, but it reminds me of the dorms.

Anyway, good to hear the wound is healing, Jonmarzie. Looks like you might have dodged an infection from the exploding fecal bacteria. :slight_smile:

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Just had to chime in for two reasons.

First, to publicly apologize for my splitting open of Jonmarzie’s hand.

Second, to comment on the fact that anything that has anything to do with EXPLODING FECAL BACTERIA is incredibly unnerving.

Fecal bacteria is disgusting enough without the whole exploding thing.

Ewww.

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Exploding fecal bacteria? So that’s what all the little critters in the seaweed are eating.

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A seldom-encountered, from-the-hip Eugene Walter quote!

Excellent, JCoM!

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Oh well,

I am sorry, but you just “ragged” yourself, and you will be better in about 2-6 monthes. What is going to suck is that an ugly scar will remain on your hand for a long time.

I broke my arm two years ago, and the cut is still plainly visiable. I wish it would heal up and go away, but I have a small cut in my inner hand that bhas been there for 15 years, so maybe you will have something to show your grandkids someday.

PS-Was there beer involved that day?

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corndog man, I haven’t even thought about a scar! :smack: Blasted! No, there wasn’t beer involved. The only alcohol was used to clean the wound before stitching it up. (I’m allergic to iodine).

Exploding fecal bacteria? That’s one disgusting thing. Now I have the image of my hand exploding open one day to reveal little bacterium crawling inside. Well, thank God for alcohol! :smiley:

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