One of the things that I really enjoy about living here is watching tourists. I love to see their expressions when they walk on the beach for the first time or when they see that amazing emerald green water.
I also like to watch them interact with the local marine life. And you just never know what they’re going to do with it.
One morning I was sitting on the beach next to the Destin bridge, reading and watching the kids play in the water. A family of tourists were sitting just down from me, and I’d been chatting a little with the mom. They were here from Iowa, and this was their first trip to the beach.
Dad and the kids were busy trying to catch blue crabs with their dip net. They splashed around chasing crabs for quite some time when suddenly, the man yelled “I got one!” and up he came with a large blue crab in his net.
“Take a picture of me holding it” he tells his wife and goes to stick his hand in the
net to pull the crab out.
I just couldn’t sit there and let him do that, so I said “Wait! Don’t put your hand in there!” Remember, Blue Crabs Don’t Bite They Pinch.
Before I could say anything else the man looked at me, rolled his eyes and very sarcastically said “Crabs don’t bite.”
He seemed really irritated that I was poking my nose in his business and he was, after all, the mighty fisherman who’d just scooped up a crab.
“No, they don’t bite but” was all I could say before he rudely dismissed me and turned back to his wife asking if she had the camera ready.
Well ok, Mr. “Crabs don’t bite” you go right ahead and stick your hand in there. Remember, Blue Crabs Don’t Bite They Pinch.
And he did.
Now for those of you who don’t know – he is right – blue crabs do not bite but they have large, wicked pinchers and once they latch onto something with those pinchers they really do not like to let go. Blue Crabs Don’t Bite They Pinch, and pinch hard!
So, as the man sticks his hand down into the net, that big blue crab reached up and latched right onto his thumb. He let out a horrible scream and yanked his hand back out of the net, but the crab had hold of him and wasn’t letting go. That man was screaming and wildly waving and shaking his hand trying to get the crab off and it just wasn’t letting go. He kept screaming and all the while his wife kept snapping away with the camera.
After a good minute, the crab relaxed it’s grip a little and the man was able to fling it back out into the water. His thumb was gushing blood, and he kept yelling “Oh My God, Oh My God!” His wife, realizing that he was hurt, threw down the camera and grabbed a towel to wrap around his thumb. Immediately the towel was soaked with blood, and he started yelling “I need to go to the emergency room!” They started grabbing their stuff and practically ran to their car, with him crying the whole way.
It is terrible to laugh at someone’s misfortune, but I have to say that as soon as they got off the beach I started laughing and laughed until I cried. A woman who was just on the other side of me was laughing too and she said “I heard you try and warn him but he just didn’t believe you, did he?”
The moral of this story is that if you’re ever on vacation and a local tells you not to touch something – DON’T – because Blue Crabs Don’t Bite – They Pinch the hell out of you. The locals know.
