Dasyatidae

So there I was enjoying my short Memorial Day vacation in Puerto Penasco (thats Rocky Point you gringo). It was remarkably cool and we didn't get in the water as much as we normally would have but it was still a nice time. Tuesday was the last day of the trip and during the last beach session I waded out into the ankle deep low tide to play with the kids when WHAM I felt like I stepped on a nail. I hobbled out and found my foot covered with blood from a small spot on the underside of my right foot. I think its called the pad of my foot a couple inches below my 2nd toe. It started hurting and didn't quit, like a really bad bee sting but that just didn't abate. I tried to gut it out sitting on the beach with my NYT crossword but just couldn't focus. 30 minutes later the other Dad travelling with us got hit also. We had a silent tough guy contest neither willing to admit he was in agony for another 30 minutes while we waited for everyone to get ready to go. Finally admitting that we were hurting we went online and found that an hour in near boiling water (as hot as you can stand apparently denatures the poison) pretty well fixed the problem but left me swollen and purple. Turns out the other guy still was hurting pretty badly several days later. About 8 days later I did some minor surgery and removed a peice of stinger. Its still sort of black and slightly raised but not longer any pain.

I write all this because I had to puss* out of a bike ride a couple days after it happened and I wanted to document my alibi. I played basketball the day after and didn't have any problem other than some swelling after I got home. The bike however nearly had me in tears. The attach point from the shoe to the pedal was just driving right into the stinger and felt like someone driving that same serrated nail in there again. I gave up at the Rincon market and went home. Like 12 miles round trip but I think we made good time.