"Why isn't Joey watching you?!"

On Thursday night my friend from Iowa (Amber) and I went to Central Market to buy some exotic fruits that grocery stores in Iowa are unlikely to carry. (Starfruit, passion fruit, miniature pinapples, etc.)

The power in Central Market was out because of a huge thunderstorm we'd had, so the few lights that were on were running off a generator, giving the entire store a kind of "can't touch this" feel. Like we weren't really supposed to be there, you know.

At least I kept waiting to get kicked out.

Anyway, since it was so dark we had trouble locating the particular fruit we'd come to find. We wound up having to ask some employee, who took us right to them. (In our defense, the passionfruit was buried under the pomegranates. Seriously, how were we supposed to know we had to pick all the pomegranates up in order to find the passion fruit.)

Amber ran off to another part of the store and I told her I'd wait for her in the fruit area. But I got really bored of looking at fruit in semi-darkness and wandered over to the seafood section. Where the lobsters are. And crabs.

I leaned over their tank and blew on the water to try to rile them up. There were about 50 of them in the tank and some were fighting but most were sleeping. I wanted them to all be fighting.

I happened to glance up and notice a "Do Not Put Hands In Lobster Tank" sign. This was disappointing to me, so I whipped out my cell phone and called The Kid.

"The Kid, I'm here at the grocery store. The sign says not to touch the lobsters but I want to anyway. Should I stick my hand in the tank?"

He sighed heavily. "WHY isn't Joey watching you?"

"He's not here. So can I touch the lobster?"

Pause. "GOSH, fine."

I stuck my hand in the lobster tank and poked the nearest lobster. I squealed (as quietly as possible) and said, "He had a hard shell."

"Where's Joey." The Kid demanded.

"He's somewhere else. Can I touch the crabs too?"

"Not my fault if you get your finger pinched off." He said.

"I superglued three of my fingers together tonight." I said, shaking my wet hand off all over the floor before an employee came and escorted me out of the store.

The Kid sighed again. "Seriously, why doesn't Joey keep a closer eye on you?"

"He was sitting right by me; he helped me peel my fingers apart. I was making a tinfoil sculpture of Trogdor in your honor when we were at Freebirds. Turns out superglue and tinfoil don't mix real well."

I could tell that he was shaking his head all the way up there in Iowa. "Sugarplum, I'm hanging up now. You need that husband to keep a better eye on you."

"Do not. I do just fine."

"OKFINEBYE," he said, in traditional Laird style. I said the same and we hung up our respective cell phones, although I did so with semi-sticky fingers from the leftover superglue.

I watched the lobsters fight for a few more minutes (barely restraining myself from poking any more of them) before deciding I'd better find Amber lest I got kicked out.

And since I really like Central Market, I don't want to get on their naughty list.