Journey in Bradenton!

Since we are on the topic of epic adventures in Bradenton, here's another one for those individuals living vicariously through my clumsy stupidity.

Maybe 2 blocks away from my cousins' house is a park of sorts decked with ancient swings and that turn-a-bout circle that spins - you'd think there'd be a better name for it, but unfortunately I never learned the name if there even is one. This park lies near a run-off stream that runs underneath a little bridge that cars will drive on to get from one area of their neighborhood to the next. This stream also runs through a forest like area. Considering I'm referring it to "forest like," that primarily means it's not an actual forest, but more of an area where trees like to congregate. I know what forests look like. *Side glances to next door*

Well, Megan and I decided to walk to this little park to escape from the house of testosterone and have fun playing outside. My age is irrelevant, because outdoor recreation is great, but I was perhaps 13-14. Apparently, I either left the house not wearing shoes at all or I ended up wearing someone's flip flops. Considering how ginormous my feet are, it was most likely one of the boys' flippy floppies that I stole. The boys ended up following us once they realized we were trying to make a stealthy escape and God forbid, the womens roam the world solo. They end up getting bored with the ancient playground and opted to padiddling in the stream - I honestly have no idea where this stream came from or if it was like a run-off for the waste in the neighborhood. These are some areas of interest that I haven't explored due to my delicate psyche.

As babysitter for the cousins, I went over to where the boys were to monitor them. This led to that and eventually Megan and I were trudging through this stream with the water up to our shins, while the boys were leading an expedition. Megan kept losing her flip flops, so I gave up on the journey and opted to just go back to the house to actually swim in a semi-sanitary body of water called their pool. As we were attempting to find a proper exit, Megan screamed that there was a spider on the ground. My mama bear instincts flew in and I murdered the daylights out of it. Swiftly, we were on our way back and we enjoyed swimming, until the boys came back and ruined our lives.

If you're reading this blog and it's anti-climatic, you haven't gotten to the best part yet. Those events wouldn't truly be known until hours later, maybe even the next day, but those events clearly would come back to haunt me. I woke up and noticed that my foot felt unusually hot yet cold to the touch, a feeling incredibly rare for summer time weather, in which frost bite is highly unlikely. I throw the blanket off of my body and look at my foot. There was a MASSIVE bump on the top of my foot with a single little bite at the center of it all. I flipped out.

Could this be the revenge from that spider? In its last moments of life, did it attack my naked foot? Could there have been something in that cursed stream? Is there a leech inside of my body inching its way up my body to eat my intestinal organs? Is this just some West Nile mosquito attack? Maybe Megan injected silicone in my foot to give me more of a foot complex. My imagination was quite colorful.

My aunt, thoroughly concerned for my safety if only because my dad would kill her if I died, took intense medical precautions and used new-age health techniques: she outlined the bite with a Sharpie marker. Yes. She doodled on my foot in the name of scientific discovery. I was told if the bite grew within a day I would be able to go to a hospital to get it looked at. Needless to say, I was entirely disappointed when the bite wasn't swollen anymore after a day's rest. I felt like my life needed extra drama and that an intense trip to the ER would have made my life more complete.