“Must’ve Been Back Around ‘70-sumthin’...”

A Daytona Tale

By Colorado T. Sky

Yeah, I used to go to Daytona all the time. Although I must say that the taste of sand (from waking up face-down on the beach) got a little old after a few years, but the thing that really clinched it was when some drunken podiatrist from Chicago with decal tattoos and a ponytail hat rode his brandy-new, fresh-off-the-trailer FLXQ-WXYZ-EIEIO (with seventeen miles on the clock) over my head. Just goes to show ya what mindin’ yer own business’ll get ya.

That was my usual posture, y’know: wakin’ up face down on The Beach.

Hey, it’s a long, cold ride from the Great White North down to the Silver Sands. And cold, too. I used to try and do it all in one shot. You know, get the cold part behind me as fast as possible. It’d usually be somewhere around Delaware before I could pry my frozen knuckles off the bars. I’m tellin’ ya folks, it wasn’t just some kind of cold; it was actually several different kinds of cold, and a couple of brand-new kinds.

Well, it happened this one particular year that I awoke in my usual posture (to wit: face down on The Beach) and as I opened my one bleary, bloodshot eye, I beheld a most remarkable sight: there before me on The Beach were two crabs. Not the shoreline tidepool crustacean delicacies (like the ones I’d munched on back in Delaware) but the other kind, the little ones, y’know,Crotch Crickets.

I’d seen ‘em (and felt ‘em) a time or two before so I knew what they were and I got a good look at ‘em, seein’ as how I had taken my usual posture.

They were a sight to behold, and as different as two Muff Mites could possibly be.

The first was fat and happy, as buff as such a ‘Nad Nibbler could possibly be. A coppery shade of bronze, he was reclining on a tiny little chaise lounge, sipping a Bug-sized Margarita and rubbin’ coconut oil on his carapace so he’d tan up nicely and dabbing zinc oxide on the tips of his antennae (so they wouldn’t burn, y’know). The other one was a pathetic lookin’ specimen of the species. He was scrawny and blue with the cold, all hunkered up inside a corner of one of those Mylar space blankets, shivering and shuddering, his little tiny mandibles chatterin’ away.

The bronze one turned to the other and asked, “tough trip down, bre’r?”

“W-w-w-way tough.” The frigid one chattered. “I c-c-came all the way d-d-down from Colebrook, New Hampshire, in a biker’s beard.”

“Whoa, dude!” the bronze one was truly impressed. “That’s a hard way to go! I gotta admire yer tenacity, but I’ll tell ya, amigo, there’s easier ways.”

“L-l-like w-w-what?” the chill one asked.

“Well, I can’t speak for anybody but m’self,” the bronze one began, “but as for me, I like to hitch a ride out to the airport, bounce on over to the ladies’ room, pick a spot under some random lid and just kick on back. It’s never long before some likely-lookin’ thatch hovers into view and then I just hop aboard. I didn’t always get a southbound on the first try, but there’s nothin’ wrong with the scenic route, y’know.

“Wow!” the chill one gasped in astonishment. “And that’s all there is to it?”

“Works for me, old son. I just settle into that nice, warm, soft peachfuzzy little thicket an’ drift off to sleep. Next thing I know, here I am!”

“W-w-w-well, I’ll be d-d-d-damned!” the blue one chattered. “That’s my plan for next year.”

“And I’ll see ya back here then, li’l buddy!” the bronze one assured him as he skittered off for another Margarita.

...and it was just about a year later when I awoke in my usual posture (y’know, face down on the fabled Silver Sands.) Once I pried my bleary, bloodshot eye open again, I could barely believe it — right there were the very same pair of Pecker Pinchers that I had overheard the year before!

Yes, indeed... just exactly like I remembered them; the big one even bigger and bronzer and beefier than the year before, and his little blue compadre even bluer, chillier and more chattering than he had been the previous year.

“Don’t I know you?” the bronze one asked as he rubbed fresh coconut oil on his carapace, his antennae smeared with a dab of zinc oxide.

“W-w-w-we met here ab-b-b-bout a year ago.” The blue one stuttered.

“I seem to recall...” the bronze one began, putting his coconut oil aside. “I probably wouldn’t have recognized you if you weren’t so blue.” Taking another pull from his margarita, he continued, “Didn’t we discuss and alternative itinerary for you this year?”

“W-w-w-e did indeed,” The blue one nodded between spasms of shivering. “And, y,know, I took your advice.”

“Ya did, did ya?” the bronze one replied, peering skeptically over the top of his tiny little Ray-Bans. “It... uh... didn’t seem to have the required result.”

“Sho’ ‘nuff not.” The blue one stammered.

“Well, what went wrong?”

“No clue.” The blue one sadly admitted. “Like you suggested, I hitched a ride out to the airport, skittered on into the ladies’ room, staked out a spot on the edge of a rim and waited.”

“So far, so good...” The bronze one nodded.

“That’s w-w-w-what I thought.” The blue one stuttered. “It wasn’t long before I spotted a likely-lookin’ candidate.Soft and downy, natural redhead.”

“My personal favorite.” The bronze one admitted with a sly grin.

“M-m-mine, too” the blue chuckled. “And it was, oh, so nice. A little patch of heaven y’know.”

“Uh huh.”

“Well, it was so soft and so warm and so nice, I just snuggled up and nestled in and fell fast asleep.”

“And what happened then?” the bronze one asked.

“I woke up in South Jersey in some biker’s beard!”

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