Some summers are like that

It's just been a trying summer all around for our boy Geoff, a fact I was recently discussing with my brother Jimmy. So Jimmy and I reminisced about those moments on the beach in June when suddenly Geoff emerged from the ocean with blood spurting like a gieser from his foot because (of course! why not!) he'd been stung by a stingray.

(Interesting side note: Did you know that roving gangs of stingrays have been terrorizing beach goers all summer long in southern California? It's true! There have been online news stories about The Rogue Stingrays of La Jolla and everything!)

Anyway, because we're from Utah none of us knew exactly what to do about Geoff's foot. So we sort of stood around and wrung our hands and looked at the foot in stunned silence while poor Geoff felt like he was passing a kidney stone. Finally Jim said he'd read somewhere that if you ever get stung by a stingray, you should totally pee on the wound. So in addition to feeling stunned, all of us started feeling mildly uncomfortable--the way you always do when someone brings up the subject of peeing on someone else.

FINALLY I just said to hell with it. Let's take the boy to the ER. And if they pee on him there, then FINE. So we took Geoff to the ER. As you already know.

But here's the story's recent coda: Jimmy called the other day and said it turned out he was wrong. If you get stung by a stingray, he said, you should NOT pee on the wound. That's the real rule. DO NOT PEE ON THE WOUND! NO MATTER WHAT YOU THOUGHT YOU READ BEFORE!

And then my fabulous brother made this very true observation: the only thing that could have made Geoffrey's summer worse was if his uncle had urinated on him in public.

So thank goodness we dodged THAT bullet.

How do I use this?

So we're back from an unusually eventful trip, including a go at the ER because Geoff got stung by a stingray. Not through the heart, obviously, like Steve Irwin. He'd be dead if that were the case and where's the fun in that?

Still. It got him in the foot and when he got out of the ocean I could see blood spurting like bloody Old spurting Faithful. It kept right on spurting until he joined us on the patio where we all stood around and watched it spurt some more because who in the hell knows what to do about stingrays if you're from stingray-free Utah?

Anyway. My brother finally put us in the car and we went to the San Clemente ER where they said stingray bites are SUPER painful. They loaded Geoff up with antibiotics and pain pills and told him to soak his foot in HOT water for 48 hours. Which he did. And now his foot is a prune.

It seems like there should be a column here right because what's a family for when you're a writer if not for exploiting purposes? But I can't figure out an angle.

You need an angle, folks, so it's not just an anecdote.