In My View, Crabs and Rumors

We were invited to go out to a crab dinner by one of the ladies my wife met at church last week. At first, I was reluctant, but by mid-week I was starting to look forward to it. I enjoy seafood in all of its different verities. My wife will however, only eat crab and shrimp. We were to meet this other couple Thursday evening, I thought this somewhat odd, but then we are really not from here so, not wanting to cause difficulties, I went along. We soon discovered why the locals only go out on weekdays instead of the weekend. It seems that due to the tourist trade, the menu, portions and the prices change on weekends. They are quite a bit higher. Another valuable lesson learned.

I am not sure just how many of you are familiar with the methods used in consuming this feast. Although the customs vary from place to place, there is no polite way to eat crab. It is best done with ones hands, a nut cracker, and a single chop stick. It is also advisable to have several (5-6) towels handy. The legs are broken loose from the body and cracked with the nutcracker and the meat inside is more or less removed with the chopstick. (I have used a small metal fork in the past; the use of the chopstick for this purpose is new to me) One other tips, don’t wear a long sleeve shirt to a crab feast. It seems various organic juices tend to run down your fingers and arms when properly approaching the crab. This can get quite messy if you are overdressed. (Short pants and T-shirt is always appropriate here) Dinner was going quite well, and small talk was rampant. Our host owned the local hardware store, and his wife was an elementary teacher. They lived here all their lives and their children were either married or off to college.

The wife (we’ll call her Mary Alice) was edging around a subject all evening that Becky and I had dealt with many times in the past. My wife, being quite bright, picked up on the curious vibes before me and was having a bit of fun with these local folks. You see, I am twenty years older than my wife.
She has two teen-aged daughters, one off to college, and the youngest, a senior in high school, living with her father. It seems Becky’s first husband, who is a splendid fellow (impeccable dresser, well mannered) discovered later on in life that he preferred the company of members of his own gender.
After the initial devastation, they handled the whole matter in a very civilized fashion. He was to support her while she finished her MBA at Georgetown, and they enjoyed joint custody of their children.
It was at this point in time that we met through a friend of a friend. I had been divorced for five years, and really wasn’t looking. As it turns out, I was required to attend one of those Washington parties (that I hated) where I had to wear a dress uniform with miniature medals, and gold braid. And as they say, the rest is history.
We have been together twelve years. The romance story that she tells about our meeting tends to get better and better as time goes on, and she was really being quite elaborate and creative for this nosey lady.
As the meal concluded, I had excused myself (to wash crab parts from my hands and arms) Becky was ask the ultimate question that she gets all the time from women (sex, he’s much older???) She has a standard reply that I have heard before, about Hugh Heffner being in his mid eighties and living with three young ladies. I am certain she derives some degree of deviant pleasure in describing the sexual physiology of the ageing male, and how maturity and experience of the male, only benefit the female. I am not sure what else she told the folks, but when I came back from the washroom they both looked at me with a certain degree of respect and awe in their eyes. I ask her about this on the drive home she just laughed and said she is now going to have to watch me with the neighbor ladies, continuing to laugh, but never tell me what she said.

And thus we see the birth of another ugly rumor in a small southern town.

…………………………….jim