Two Things That May Not Go Together
By J. Lee Austin, MD
Just a quick word of gratitude to all my subscribers. I cannot thank you enough for reading my rambling … y’all are the icing on my cake. And any note in the comment section is like the delicious cherry on top. My son says I’m like a starving artist … working for comments. Mr. Smartypants may be on to something there. A great big thanks to other Substack writers recommending me … folks like the great Donald Jeffries, Matt j.a.o.b., Capt Roy Harkness, Cliff Carnicom, JimyChanga and others like Tom Osten of the Crystal Beach Local News. You guys are the bomb.

And Bravo to the Substack company that has provided a platform and launching pad for my latent writing career. Cannot thank them enough either. Long live the freedom of the Stack.

J. Lee is a contributor to Crystal Beach Local News, and is the founder of The Good Help Network, a reader-supported publication.

On a totally unrelated note, the beach here now is gorgeous … water so clear you may forget the muddy brown days when the mighty Mississippi shares its shades of chocolate with the Texas Coast and other beachy places.

So yeah, this week Bolivar had a Caribe look … there was just one slimy little problem. The crystal waters were infested to the gills with striking numbers of jellyfish. As our red-flag fate would have it, the beautiful and bountiful moon jelly (aka saucer jelly) chose this week to invade the scene, multiply like rats and sting many otherwise innocent vacationeers.

Aurelia aurita is easily recognizable, with its full moon bell and its four, conspicuous horseshoe-shaped gonads. If there’s a better, bolder display for handy-dandy organs of sexual reproduction, I haven’t seen it yet.

Reminds me of our intra-mural flag football team in medical school. We were called The Nadz. This was so our fans could root for us by shouting out the crudely clever double entendre “Go Nadz!” Med school is weird, what can I say.

These jellies are amazing creatures, unless you happen to be the hapless zooplankton that gets consumed and wiped out whenever the saucers land. The most interesting thing about them though, is their ability to undergo lifecycle reversal, essentially growing younger rather than older, according to Anne Marie Helmenstine, PhD.

Read More: https://www.thoughtco.com/moon-jellyfish-4692397

If this is true (fact checkers: ready, set, go!), why have we not heard about this? And why is there not an intense investigation into how this aging reversal process works? It’s almost like they don’t want us to live forever or something.

To make a long story longer, the moon jellyfish has dangling tentacles covered with nematocysts, tiny sacs of venom that rupture when touched, kill their prey and sting human body parts. Fragile tentacles break off and fill the watery spaces in between them, making any efforts at avoidance a fool’s errand. They say the toxin is mild, but they don’t say … depending on which body part you ask.

So there’s this acquaintance, let’s say Doyle, who may have had one nematocyst too many make its merry way into his swimsuit, putting quite the jig in his step.

When his discomfort rose to fire alarm level three, the situation was made exponentially worse by the fact that our male friend happened to be at the beach with four ladies and thus essentially had no one to tell. No one with whom to commiserate, no one to suggest a remedy. Oh the horror.

So in a pain-induced panic, he called his buddy, marine biologist Lymer Beanski, and asked for his advice. Hearkening back to that enduring wives’ tale that says to urinate on the stinging spot, Lymer said with a straight face, “Dude, lay on your back and pee straight up.” To which Doyle squealed, “What about the wind?!!”

Best of luck to all, especially those frolicking with the wilding waters of the gulf,
~~ j ~~

“To truly laugh you must be able to take out your pain and play with it!”
~~ Charlie Chaplin

[Sept-24-2024]