Encounter With A Creature

Santa Barbara, California. Summer of nineteen eighty, late July. The beach was beautiful, sand smooth and almost white. A perfect day. Sun, surf, and sand. Swimmers splashing and frolicking in the gently rolling waves. Seagulls screaming, seeking some scraps of something they can eat. Chest-deep was I in wonderful water, allowing the waves to lift me up and carry me for several yards like just another stick of driftwood. Feet free from the bottom of the ocean as the wave picked me up and then feeling contact as the current deposits me again. Suddenly something different happens when I come back down: my feet land on something squirmy instead of touching solid ground. Some live creature; I could feel it, though I knew not what it was; it resented being stepped on and I knew that just because of a sudden, sharp pain hits me right on the top of my left foot; feels like I've been cut by razor and I know this can't be good. Make my way out of the water, stumble up the beach and then notice blood that trickles out of hole the size of fountain pen. What has happened? Who can tell me? 'Round me gathers group of men. One says, 'I know; you have managed to meet a stingray, my friend.' Hospital was not that helpful; antidote they had not one. 'Take some Advil, grin and bear it, for this night will not be fun.' They were right; it was not pleasant; leg swelled up to twice its size. On the morrow I felt better and it left me much more wise. Now I know that I should shuffle feet while walking in the sea, thus avoiding coming down on something else that might stab me.