Crawling (and occasionally flying) out there in this fine wide world is a little beetle whose body is packed with caustic acid. When this insect is squashed, the acid smears onto the skin of the sqausher and causes a rather nasty chemical burn. It would be a decent defense mechanism except I've never even seen one. You see, I can't avoid swatting them because they crawl around on me while I'm sleeping. (Actually, this doesn't really bother me all that much. The crawling while I'm sleeping thing. I can't say I'm pumped about it, but I'm sure there are plenty of things creeping around on all of us whether it's in Uganda or America. You see, most of the night time crawlers are considerate enough to practice "Leave No Trace" ethics and I wake up the next morning none the wiser. Great.)
For whatever reason, I have a sub-concious Kung Fu reflex and I keep swatting them dead in my sleep and waking up with these nasty chemical burns. This is my third such burn, the first on my face. When the burn is on your face it's apparently called "Nairobi Eye." I have no idea how they've managed to (repeatedly) gain access to my net covered bed.
I don't want to moan about my health problems too much, it's bad form, but I've gotten walloped pretty good the past couple months. Torn (?) ACL, torn meniscus, esophagus burn from my malaria meds, the flu, sleepless nights and these damn beetles. Ehhhhhh man!
During training, while seemingly half of my group was suffering from persistant gastro-intestinal problems and I was as regular as a Twins first round playoff exit, I made the mistake of bragging about my good health. This is what, it seems, come-uppens feel like.
But,
you take the good,
you take the bad,
you take them both
and then you have...
