When I was leaving Florida I had to figure out what to do with Crabby, the hermit crab who is now 150 years old in hermit crab years. For some insane reason, airlines don’t allow a hermit crab on a plane—if you have a 90 pound Lab, he can sit in the aisle, no problem, but do not bring a hermit crab.
Anyway, I was going to overnight Crabby via FedEx, but decided first I’d see if I couldn’t skirt the rules a bit—i.e. ignore the rules completely. I showed up at the airport early, Crabby securely tucked into a cold cuts container with some damp paper towels, grabbed my ticket, and headed for security. I travel light by myself, obviously, but because I had two laptops, an iPad, a camera, and wear shoes, I had like fifty plastic bins that had to go through the scanner. I didn’t mention Crabby, figuring that on the off chance i got busted with him, I’d still have an hour to zip over to FedEx.
A whole pile of my plastic bins got flagged by the x-ray for bombs, or a hermit crab, or something, so they had to check them by hand. First bag had a sealed bag of pistachios, which it turns out can’t be used as a weapon, and were cleared after some further testing and investigation. Then came the backpack, which after being emptied of all my electronics, contained nothing but a crab. I was sure the jig was up, and I was already running through the story of how he is a service animal—and no, you can’t ask me why I need his service. The TSA guy carried the empty backpack over to me, unzipped it, and pulled out a 2/3 empty tube of toothpaste, completely ignoring the small box with the holes punched in the top and the tiny animal crawling around in it. He scanned my toothpaste and waved me through.
I thought I had won the day. I heroically e-mailed Ali to let her know her crab was safely on his way to Portland with me. It was six hours later that I e-mailed her again to let her know that while in the process of smuggling a $4 hermit crab, I had managed to leave behind our $4,000 camera bag. TSA had also pulled that out for special inspection, but after so many of these special hands-on inspections I had managed not to realize that they hadn’t given me my camera back.
Amazingly, when I called the airport, the TSA lady I got on the phone was super friendly and had all the info she needed to send me the bag. The call took 8 minutes! It took me 5x longer to get through the Palm Beach security line at 4:30 in the morning than it did to get that taken care of on the phone. There is honestly nothing in the world that could have surprised me more than that phone call did. (Update: it cost me $78 to have them FedEx my camera to me. Crabby is turning out to be one expensive “FREE” crab.)
She’s going to have to duck her head to go in here pretty soon.
Lowe asked, “If an asteroid hit the roof, would you say, “Oh, God” or “Oh, Jesus”?
Later that day when Ali was wrestling with him, holding down his arms, she asked what he would say if she gave him a bunch of kisses. Without skipping a beat he said, “Oh, shit.”
There was a brief period where we worried about him using that word, but the fact that he used it in such perfect context all the time eventually wore us down. As long as he’s using it for stubbed toes, and being kissed, and not for calling people names, then it’s hard to argue with it.
Looking for something very Portland-y to do, we came across a Roller Derby tournament. I used to watch this every weekend when I was a kid. The only thing missing was the elevated track with the berms, and walls to throw people over. It was still every bit as fun, though. Hot dogs, beer, and donuts—perfect day out.
Fun with food coloring.
13 Comments on “Portland-y”
Way to go Crabby! What a riot! Glad your camera bag was found…
I’m still shaking my head that all ended well. Now to get Crabby back down to the boat in a few weeks…
Ah my friends at the TSA…..
The kids and I joked that we might not see Papa for awhile with what he was trying to pull off.
Love the way you think.
The Crabby story cracked me up! And Lowe, too haha
Don’t let him watch the news or he’ll be using that word profusely.
Love your stories!
Isn’t that the truth.
Crabby was worth every dime. 🙂
Maybe we will start sending him to Bum friends for extended visits…. 😉
You have such a great story telling ability, I just sit back and laugh!
Thanks for making an old woman smile once again!
You all melt my heart.
Give your mom big hugs for me!
Our oldest grandson was saying jeez. My husband cautioned him on using that word as it’s like saying Jesus in vain. (Stay with me…this is funny). The grandson took the information well and seriously. Several months later we had both grandsons out for a weekend and the younger was saying jeez….so the elder said, “Grandpa, you need to tell him about that”. Paul repeated the same and the younger grandson said, “can I say gosh?…..No….WHAT CAN I SAY?”
To that I replied, “You can say shit!” After their total shock….we laughed together and still do whenever we remember the conversation! ❤️
That is great! And seriously when Lowe says it, you cannot help but smile (when he isn’t looking of course).