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Signs of Life

Nancy L. Horner

Bring Your Forks and Napkins, Darlin's, Dinner's in the Creek

"We got crawdads for supper." My 10-year-old beamed, thrilled that his father had taken him to the open-air booth on the site of a former gas station to buy what looked like a bucketful of shrunken lobsters.

On the table sat the newspaper-wrapped horror: a large pile of miniature red critters. I told myself not to have nightmares about them. Where I grew up, those were the creatures little boys used to proudly dig out of the creek and bring home to mothers in shoeboxes. Yuck.

Down here, in the Deep South, "crawfish" are a spicy delicacy. Festivals are named after the little critters and plates are piled high at the many booths where you'll find them served. When you pass those booths full of steaming crawfish, there's no missing the pungent Cajun odor, which is easily strong enough to make your eyes water, especially if you get too close to the steam.

I've never developed a taste for those suckers.

"They're great," my husband said, cajoling me for about the dozenth time. "Come on, have some."

"No, thanks." I looked down at the little pile of meat that William had meticulously stripped from little crustacean bodies. Considering their size, there's not a whole lot of meat on those things. No wonder people always get such heaping helpings.

"Mom, you've gotta try them. They're deeeelisseeuss."

I grinned at my silly child but cringed at the thought of touching them. Shiver. I like shrimp, but the old creek association just doesn't want to leave my head. How can anyone eat the things that those dirty little boys used to wade in the muddy creek to dig for and frighten little girls with?

Watching the guys eat the crawdads reminded me of a time when our little family, pre-William, went to the Gulf Coast with friends Mike and Carrie. We were all gathered together in this rambling house in Biloxi, kicking back with Mike's parents and three brothers after a long day of boating out to a small island in the Gulf of Mexico. We had picnicked, played, and baked in the sun and everyone was weary.

For dinner, our hosts had decided to serve crawfish and had placed a large order with one of the fresh seafood establishments near the beach. This plan provided me with a huge dilemma because I was, even at the best of times, a picky eater. We were fairly new to Mississippi, but I had already passed up several friendly attempts to convince me that I should try crawfish. You know the old saw: "When in Rome, do as the Romans do." I'd make a lousy Roman if crawdads were what they were serving. I knew I was in for an awkward situation because everyone else was excited about the dinner plans. They weren't even planning to cook hotdogs for the squeamish, doggone it.

Mike and Carrie asked us to go along to pick up the order, so we all piled into a car together and headed to the seafood store, which turned out to be pretty much a shack with a walk-in and a bunch of coolers with names on them.

Carrie had placed the order, so she looked around at the coolers and, not seeing the Peckham name on any of them, asked for the order for the Peckham family. The man behind the counter shook his head. "Someone already picked up the order for Peckham," he said.

"What!" Carrie and Mike were stunned and horrified. "Someone stole our crawfish?"

"They said their name was Peckham," the man replied. "Paid for 'em about ten minutes ago. Sorry, ma'am."

As it turned out, they were also completely sold out of crawfish, so there was no possibility for replacing the missing main course. The last coolers full of crawfish, already spoken for, sat packed and labeled with the names of the purchasers in the corner of the little seafood shack.

Carrie had an "If I could get my hands on those thieves " look on her face as we headed back to the car. Snatching up another family's crawfish is apparently a crime down here. So what if the evildoers paid?

All the way back to the house, our hosts discussed the nerve of those low-life, good-for-nothing, crawfish-stealing so-and-so's. They walked into the house sulking and shared the bad news. Faces fell around the house.

Now, everyone wondered aloud, what were they to do about supper? The mother of the family sighed. "We have plenty of steak," she said. "I suppose we could grill up some steaks." Resigned to the disappointment of having to eat steak instead of crawfish, the men headed out to start up the grill while the tables were set and the steaks pulled from the refrigerator to be prepared.

Secretly, I was relieved and hid the grin that wanted to sneak across my face. My husband nudged me with an elbow. "Go ahead," he said, "and look disappointed about having to eat steak instead of crawfish."

Nancy Horner

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