Walking Misadventures

Lately, my walks around town have been filled with mishaps of one sort or another. This weekend I went with Jay to take some pictures of the river. I didn't fall in this time, because we never actually made it there. Even if we had made it there, pictures would have been impossible because the sleekest digital camera is worthless without a memory card.

I did, however. manage to bruise my knee on a guardrail after picking gorgeous handfuls of blackberries that I couldn't eat. I couldn't eat them because I had decided to brush my teeth before setting out on our walk. Blackberries plus toothpaste residue equals a bitter nastiness.

Not realizing that my walk karma was still in the negative zone, Jay and I set out for a jaunt this evening.

All was going well. . .

and then there was buzzing.

Bees? Wasps? Mosquitoes?

No.

The Biggest, Blackest, Bloodthirstiest Horsefly on the face of the planet.

Jay and I began jumping, jerking, and weaving. Motorists were staring at what appeared to be two crazies on a holiday from the psych ward. I wasn't afraid at first. Horseflies tend to choose Jay over me, so I let him get ahead of me a bit. When it comes to humongoid, biting insects -- there are no allegiances.

My reprieve was only to last seconds. Because this horsefly had learned to multi-task. This cousin-of-Mothra had no problem simultaneously tormenting two people. This Hell-spawned behemoth only gained power from our fruitless attempts at self-defense. "Resistance is futile," was buzzing in our ears.

In a desperate attempt to rid ourselves of the beast, we sprinted for our lives.

Tragically, our legs were no match for horsefly wings.

Not to be outdone, we slammed on the brakes and he flew right by.

Only we had to keep walking on the same sidewalk and he was waiting.

I don't know how we escaped. Maybe one of our flailing limbs actually connected for a stunning blow or perhaps he was merely out for public humiliation this day. Or did the sadistic little bloodsucker deem us unworthy?

Whatever it was, we didn't slow down and we didn't look back.