The Shrimp Story

First of all, in case anyone's been wondering, I've identified the birds at the bottom of the last post as a dark-eyed junco and a song sparrow.

Several days ago, Jack brought me to one of those fancy military dinners. Apparently they were celebrating successfully completing some kind of training event or other, and they all went out to eat at this really nice restaurant. It was a bring-your-wives event. So I dressed up all pretty and went with Jack.

I was as nervous as a mouse put into a nest of snakes. I feel awkward when I'm dressed up anyway (even though I was at least wearing slacks instead of a dress), and it's been a long time since I've had to use any kind of actual etiquette or table manners. Plus I had to remember all the extra military rules that I've never really had occasion to use before, since I don't go to many military events. I was trying to remember all the names and ranks of the people Jack introduced me to, how to properly hold and angle the silverware, trying to keep my elbows off the table, trying to keep from fiddling nervously with my hair or my necklace or my fork, trying to remember not to belch loudly, that sort of thing. I'm sure I came off as somewhat distant and preoccupied.

Halfway through the dinner, I was trying to figure out how to politely eat my salmon, which kept breaking into smaller pieces when I tried to cut it, when suddenly I heard a "splat!" I looked toward the sound and saw a shrimp tail sitting on my spoon. Shrimp tail. On my spoon. It took me about three full seconds before my brain even registered that something about that wasn't quite right.

As it turns out, the captain who was sitting across from me (not Jack) was eating shrimp pasta in some kind of mushroom sauce. Somehow, as he bit the tail off the shrimp (or, more accurately, bit the shrimp off its tail), it had tried to make one last desperate bid for freedom. The tail squirted out of his fingers, bounced off his forehead--splattering his face with mushroom sauce in the process--hit the window, and landed on my spoon, splattering more mushroom sauce on me.

Suddenly, I wasn't so nervous anymore. Everyone at the table ragged on the poor guy mercilessly for the rest of the dinner. It was awesome. And he gave me his hot fudge sundae to make up for it.

Also, I met the colonel. He gave me a rose. D'awwww.