their mother rescued them.
You can’t say that about the concierge at the Hyatt in Cancun.
CHAPTER 12
Awfully Crabby
I love crabs. Not the pubic lice or pets, but crustaceans. Hunting them, and then steaming the catch in Old Bay seasoning, cracking their shells with wooden hammers and picking out the minuscule bits of meat. People underestimate the skill involved in tossing a piece of string tied to a chicken wing with precision into the ocean or bay. And even once you perfect the hurl, interpreting the subtle tugs of a hungry sea spider and pulling it from the water is a whole other degree of difficulty. It’s a sport, yes, a sport of endurance. I can wade in the briny surf for six hours without food or water. Crabbing offers me an adrenaline rush I don’t find in any other area of my life. A primal, Darwinist mano a mano tug-of-warwith a prehistoric creature with claws—and it’s not a video game! Others get their endorphins pumped by gambling, shoplifting, or opioids. For me, it’s the thrill of my own personal Deadliest Catch, but without cameras or battling forty-foot waves in the Bering Sea. I crab from the shore, in a bathing suit, wading boots, a cooler stocked with barbecue-flavored potato chips and a couple of Snapple lemonades.
When my kids were babies, they would sit under a beach umbrella on a quilt, wearing floppy hats and gnawing on apple slices while watching Mommy yank crabs out of the brackish water and screaming in delight when I got two in one net.
One afternoon last summer I decided to up my game and relinquish the chicken and string, relying exclusively on my proficient eyes and my weapon (a large net used for skimming leaves off a swimming pool) to comb for crabs. The sun was at peak strength and the aquatic decapods were scrambling for shade within the crevasses of the jetty. My younger daughter was content sitting on the sand in her little bikini and humming Katy Perry songs to bits of barnacles and whelk shells.
I suddenly spotted a large blue crab trying to scuttle underneath a rock about three feet deep in the water. As he tucked in his claws, I methodically raised my net. My face was motionless, but my eyes aflame. I was as focused as a lurcher (an Irish dog used for poaching game)to the flash of a fox’s tail. And then, as I tilted a few inches forward, I lost my balance and slipped.
My body scraped down the side of an algae-covered rock. I felt my feet hit the sandy ocean bed. I quickly inspected my arms for any collateral damage, but saw only a few scrapes on my left palm. And then I looked down. There was a bloody waterfall running down my leg. I located the source: my shin had an eight-inch gash. As I stared at the chunk of white bone sticking out like an ivory piano key, I felt nothing; therefore the leg couldn’t have been mine, right? The blood gushing from my leg began to color the water. The disgusting bay water filled with Canadian goose poop and dead quahogs. It’s amazing how sluggishly the mind works when it’s not willing to confront its own horrors. It took me thirty drowsy seconds for my leg to inform my brain that I was injured, that there was a piece of my bone floating in the bay, and that I probably needed medical assistance. It’s the same passive reaction I imagine people whose limbs have been bitten off by sharks experience. You’re numb and in shock and hope that you’re watching a PBS documentary about somebody else’s drama. And if you wait a few more delirious moments, you’ll realize it was a hallucination, your leg is fine or your arm is still there, it was just a big black shadow in the water.
I looked over at my daughter who was belting out “California Girls,” strutting on her seaweed stage. Ifelt light-headed. Thank the good lord our babysitter, Cherie, had just shown up with sandwiches. I say that because I’d probably still be in the bay now, a corpse in tattered J.Crew shorts flapping in the wind like a skeleton in the Pirates of the
You can’t say that about the concierge at the Hyatt in Cancun.
CHAPTER 12
Awfully Crabby
I love crabs. Not the pubic lice or pets, but crustaceans. Hunting them, and then steaming the catch in Old Bay seasoning, cracking their shells with wooden hammers and picking out the minuscule bits of meat. People underestimate the skill involved in tossing a piece of string tied to a chicken wing with precision into the ocean or bay. And even once you perfect the hurl, interpreting the subtle tugs of a hungry sea spider and pulling it from the water is a whole other degree of difficulty. It’s a sport, yes, a sport of endurance. I can wade in the briny surf for six hours without food or water. Crabbing offers me an adrenaline rush I don’t find in any other area of my life. A primal, Darwinist mano a mano tug-of-warwith a prehistoric creature with claws—and it’s not a video game! Others get their endorphins pumped by gambling, shoplifting, or opioids. For me, it’s the thrill of my own personal Deadliest Catch, but without cameras or battling forty-foot waves in the Bering Sea. I crab from the shore, in a bathing suit, wading boots, a cooler stocked with barbecue-flavored potato chips and a couple of Snapple lemonades.
When my kids were babies, they would sit under a beach umbrella on a quilt, wearing floppy hats and gnawing on apple slices while watching Mommy yank crabs out of the brackish water and screaming in delight when I got two in one net.
One afternoon last summer I decided to up my game and relinquish the chicken and string, relying exclusively on my proficient eyes and my weapon (a large net used for skimming leaves off a swimming pool) to comb for crabs. The sun was at peak strength and the aquatic decapods were scrambling for shade within the crevasses of the jetty. My younger daughter was content sitting on the sand in her little bikini and humming Katy Perry songs to bits of barnacles and whelk shells.
I suddenly spotted a large blue crab trying to scuttle underneath a rock about three feet deep in the water. As he tucked in his claws, I methodically raised my net. My face was motionless, but my eyes aflame. I was as focused as a lurcher (an Irish dog used for poaching game)to the flash of a fox’s tail. And then, as I tilted a few inches forward, I lost my balance and slipped.
My body scraped down the side of an algae-covered rock. I felt my feet hit the sandy ocean bed. I quickly inspected my arms for any collateral damage, but saw only a few scrapes on my left palm. And then I looked down. There was a bloody waterfall running down my leg. I located the source: my shin had an eight-inch gash. As I stared at the chunk of white bone sticking out like an ivory piano key, I felt nothing; therefore the leg couldn’t have been mine, right? The blood gushing from my leg began to color the water. The disgusting bay water filled with Canadian goose poop and dead quahogs. It’s amazing how sluggishly the mind works when it’s not willing to confront its own horrors. It took me thirty drowsy seconds for my leg to inform my brain that I was injured, that there was a piece of my bone floating in the bay, and that I probably needed medical assistance. It’s the same passive reaction I imagine people whose limbs have been bitten off by sharks experience. You’re numb and in shock and hope that you’re watching a PBS documentary about somebody else’s drama. And if you wait a few more delirious moments, you’ll realize it was a hallucination, your leg is fine or your arm is still there, it was just a big black shadow in the water.
I looked over at my daughter who was belting out “California Girls,” strutting on her seaweed stage. Ifelt light-headed. Thank the good lord our babysitter, Cherie, had just shown up with sandwiches. I say that because I’d probably still be in the bay now, a corpse in tattered J.Crew shorts flapping in the wind like a skeleton in the Pirates of the
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