I’m stinking ‘not’ rich because, amongst other valid reasons, I don’t wash. So, in order to
cheer myself up, I eat crab once a week; as it makes me ‘feel’ stinking ‘rich’ for a change. I’m
joking. I eat crab simply because it tastes nice. I also laugh when I eat it, as it was a crab that
almost stopped me reaching the earth this time via my parents, and eventually opening
Coventry’s famous and much loved, Chuckling Crab Restaurant.
You see. When my dad was courting my mum, up North, on the West Coast of Cumbria, in
the laal town of Millom, they went swimming one Summer day to a cute seaside place called
White Rock. My dad decided to be daft, and lay stomach down on the bottom of the briny, and
then grab my mothers’ ankle, drag her under, and give her a big, romantic, salty kiss; trying to
avoid any passing ‘log’ sewerage in the process. But, while he was down there, a big common
brown crab nippered his testicles, the exact moment that he had subdued her (chinned her), and
planted a big Frenchy on those rosy red lips.
As a result, he gave out an underwater scream, and filled my mums’ lungs up with air, to
the point where she floated to the surface like a balloon, and did the loudest burp that had ever
been heard in Cumberland (It wasn’t Cumbria back then); the record still stands. It showed as an
earth tremor on the Richter scale.
She was very embarrassed, and everyone on the shore laughed. My future dad was laying
on the bottom trying to get the common brown off ‘me’, when he was dragged up by the hair by
the one he loved (encouraged by the shouted instructions from the shore from his future mother
in law, along the lines of ‘Don’t let him drown, he gets a good wage!’).
After my future mother pulled the crab off and crushed it as though it were made from
tissue paper, they began to row... as in ‘argue’, because they didn’t have a ‘row’ing boat in which
to row, and everyone on the beach laughed again.
Ever since then I’ve loved crabs for being beasts of great entertainment value, they taste
yummy as well.
Sweet and beautiful. Bright and beautiful. All things.
Every time I see crabs nippers, I think of my dad’s knackers. What a great memory eh?
