from 04/07/07: Crawfish and Urine

April 7, 2007 - Saturday
Crawfish and Urine Current mood: hyper Category: Life
This is quite possibly the funniest story I have read in years. This story, true story, was written by one of my very best friends here in Austin. Don't be discouraged by the length, it is worth the read. You will see why l like her so much.

I was in the local grocery store the other day, shopping for all the things a middle-age semi-vegetarian white woman might shop for. I was leaving the seafood dept. after having bought some fresh non-farmed fish when I saw a display stand in the middle of the deptartment. It was filled with ice and what looked to be about 700 very cold and nearly frozen to death crawfish (seems crawfish boilin' season has arrived). They looked up at me (from what would surely be an icy death bed at some point) with their little black beady eyes and raised their tiny red pinchers towards me. It was as if they were saying "pick me, help me, save me, love me". I was their God. I immediately knew what I had to do. I got a plastic bag and tongs and proceeded to fill it up with crawfish. It was very heart-wrenching to decide which ones would have a chance at freedom and which ones would be left to face either a slow cold or very hot boiling death. I empathized with Meryl Streep in "Sophie's Choice" and knew how tough a choice she had to make. But it had to be done. Saving some was better than none.
I chose the larger more active ones. I figured they would have a fighting chance once I released them into my neighborhood pond. Some trendy woman stopped and watched what I was doing. She said to me "I see you are picking out the larger and most alive ones. Are they the best for eating?" Shamefully I said "yes". Hoping that would be the end of the conversation. She then continued on to ask me how to cook the crawfish. I loathed myself as I found myself explaining how one concocts a "crawfish boil". There is a part of me new enough to this "not eating my fellow creatures that have been shot full of growth hormones and antibiotics and fed a non-natural diet thing" to where I could not bring myself to tell her I was buying these poor little bastards to set them free. I guess I didn't want to appear as some kooky tree hugger or militant vegan. So I lied. Finally she moved on.
After filling the bag I took it to the seafood counter to be weighed and tagged for checkout. The associate was going to put ice in the bag and gave me a funny look when I vehemently refused it. I checked out and as soon as I got out of the store, tore some holes in the plastic bag so they could get some oxygen. I put the bag of "soon to be free" crawfish in the front seat of my car because it was sunny and would warm them up. I went back to the store to look at some rose bushes that were on display. When I got back to the car some of the more daring and active crawfish had made a break for it through the air holes in the plastic bag. Some were under the seat, some had even managed to wedge themselves into a pocket on the door where I keep CDs.
Not having any tongs, I steeled myself to the task at hand. I knew a crawfish pinch wasn't that bad, but nonetheless I was going to avoid it if I could. I plucked them from the CD pocket and from under the seat. They fought me valiantly. I guess the warmth of the car had really invigorated them.
I drove to the small pond in my Texas hill country subdivision to release them. It is about a 12 mile drive from the store. Somewhere along the way I felt I needed to pee. Not a big urge. Just that somewhere the brain is starting to think about it. I figured I would just wait until I got home, it wouldn't take long to release my little survivors. I got to the pond and took the plastic bag full of now very much alive crawfish and proceeded to strategically place them in the pond. I didn't want to dump them all in one place for fear none would survive if a predator found them quickly. So I walked up and down the bank kerplunking them here and there. Some really took off, scooting backwards into the depths of the pond. Others just kinda hung out where I had put them. They were free again. Free at last. Thank God Almighty, they were free at last. They were beautiful, the sun glistened down through the clear water illuminating their bright red shells against the calichi bottom of the pond.
That is, except for one. As I walked up and down the shore of the pond admiring my handiwork and thinking, "my what a good person I am", I spied one little fellow on his back. Maybe he was the one idiot in the bunch. Because as we all know, there IS always one in a the crowd, isn't there? I watched to see if the idiot crawfish was going to be able to flip himself over. It was apparent he couldn't or wouldn't. I don't know which, because he wasn't saying. So I decided to step in and help him.
We (the crawfish and I) had come this far, I wasn't about to let my immediate release survival rate drop to anything less than 100%.
I had been to yoga earlier that day and was wearing some rather nice yellow Lance Armstrong special edition Nike flip-flops given to me by a friend. I really love these flip-flops and have taken great pains not to get them dirty. I usually just wear them to yoga or to work. Not out in the yard. I also had on some nice capri-length yoga pants as well, with loose legs.
The upside-down crawfish was about two feet from the bank. I couldn't reach him leaning over the water. I couldn't find a stick to turn him over with. I had to step into the pond with a least one foot in order to reach him/her. The pond bottom looked pretty solid to me, not muddy; packed caliche like we find in the creeks and lakes in the hill country. After all, the crawfish had not sank into the pond bottom when I threw them in. How wrong I was.
As soon as my foot hit the pond bottom, my foot, along with my special edition Lance Armstrong Nike flip-flop was sucked down into the mud about mid-way to my calf. At about the same time my foot hit the cold water and was being sucked down into the mud, I noticed I was beginning to pee. It was a small trickle. My urinary sphincter was trying to do it's God-given job. It just wasn't succeeding very well. I am a middle-aged white woman after all.
I pressed on despite my two handicaps and flipped the crawfish over. It didn't move. It seemed content and bemused to stay and watch me try to extricate my foot and beloved flip-flop from the mud while peeing on myself. I pulled my foot free, but to my horror, the flip-flop wasn't on my foot. It had been sucked down into the muddy quagmire of the deceptive pond bottom. I couldn't see the hole where my foot had been because I had stirred up the mud getting my foot stuck and unstuck. Pee is still dribbling down my leg at this point. I gave up fighting the losing pee battle (double entendre). I sat on a rock, stuck both arms into the cold water to dig my Lance Armstrong special edition flip-flops out of the quicksand-like mire and let the urine flow. Like Kenny Rogers says, "You have to know when to hold 'em.....etc...."
As I sat on the rock, pissing myself and blindly digging in the mud for the flip-flops I thought to myself, "was it worth it?" Was freeing those 20 or so little lives worth this private humiliation, not to mention the soiling of the flip-flop (and yoga pants)? And the answer is of course, "yes".
I finally succeeded in getting the dirty filthy flip-flop out, finished peeing, picked up the empty smelly crawfish bag and walked back to my vehicle. Thank God I had some towels in my vehicle and that it was only a quarter-mile or so to my house. I got in the truck and the oddest mixture of smells surrounded me. One that most of us will (hopefully) never experience in a lifetime: the smell of crawfish and urine.