A crabby crustacean

It was nineteen years ago. Pete and I were on day 2 of our honeymoon in Hutchinson Island, Florida, and even though we were both beach bums, we knew better than to brave the waves that were pounding the sand. Hurricane Hugo was ravaging the South Carolina coast several hundred miles north, but the surf was churned up all over the East Coast of the US! We opted out of swimming in favor of the more "safe" choice--walking along the beach. We were enjoying our leisurely stroll, walking hand-in-hand and dreaming out loud together about the life we were going to live together (funny how absolutely NONE of those dreams ever left that beach!), you know, just doing that newlywed thing. The romance was squelched in a hurry, however, when Pete decided to investigate a small piece of fleshy-looking "something" just under the surface of the sand that we'd come across. With a hurricane brewing off the coastline, we native Floridians knew that *anything* could be washed ashore, so we really had no idea what to expect. It resembled what we knew shark flesh to look like but was far too small to be a buried shark. Pete reached down to "poke" it (why do men always do this? it never ends well...)........and........

IT REACHED BACK!!!

Eight inches of very angry blue crab leg came hurling itself out of the sand at Pete, followed by a body and another eight-inch-long leg. Pete jumped higher than I'd ever seen him jump (or have seen him jump since), and somehow avoided getting his pinky TOO caught in the crab's claw. The crab went skittering off toward the water, displaying his claws for the whole world to see as he dashed away from his would-be-poker, and Pete ran behind, muttering something about not letting the crab get away.

We ate at Red Lobster that night. What did we order? Crab legs, of course! Pete wanted his revenge for having the you-know-what scared out of him!