The Shell Game

Am I becoming That Woman with the Horseshoe Crab Shell on her Dashboard?

“There’s a horseshoe crab on the dashboard.”

My husband didn’t say this the way he might tell me there’s spinach in my teeth or that I’m missing an earring. He knew he was telling me something I already knew. After all, I was the last one to drive the car. What he wanted was the explanation, the way Ricky wanted an explanation from Lucy, even though he knew what he was in for.

“Isn’t he great?” I said. “His name’s Jeff.”

Have you ever started something that you don’t know how to stop?

Jeff’s a horseshoe crab who currently resides on the dashboard of my car. The passenger side, to be precise. He’s been there almost three weeks.

Before you make assumptions about the aroma inside my auto, you should know that Jeff’s actually a shell of his former self. He’s an odor-free molt—the left-behind exterior of a horseshoe crab who grew too big for his britches.

I found Jeff on Forest Beach in Chatham, Massachusetts. Half-buried in the sand, just above some desiccated seaweed and a pile of slipper shells. The instant I picked him up, a scene began to write itself in my head. Something about a five-year-old boy who can’t wait to grow up, who finds the shell of a horseshoe crab that did. The boy worries that he, too, might grow out of his skin when he gets bigger. Until (like any five-year-old boy) he decides he’d rather chase a seagull with his new best friend—a horseshoe crab shell named Jeff.

Of course this would happen to me. On a beach filled with yellow Labs named Cooper and cockapoos named Bailey, I met a spiky husk of a horseshoe named Jeff. My muse.

I carried Jeff back to our beach chairs, where I introduced him to my younger son who, after twenty-five years of growing comfortably into his skin, knows me well enough not to be surprised by this sort of thing.

And, at the end of the day, when we packed up our chairs and our towels and our cooler, I packed up Jeff and placed him on the dashboard of our car.

“It’s time this crab saw the world,” I announced.

“Crab shell,” my son replied.

“Whatever. He’s going places.”

The twenty-five-year-old man-boy in the passenger’s seat knew the drill. After I placed Jeff on the dashboard, he adjusted him slightly so he could see better wouldn’t slide around.

My husband knows the drill too. After we returned from the beach and I introduced him to Jeff, his only follow-up comment concerned a few grains of sand he spied on the dashboard in Jeff’s vicinity.

“I think he pooped.”

In other words, “Welcome to the family.”

Jeff’s been riding shotgun ever since. He’s done the Mass Pike, the Thruway, the Taconic. The Parkway, the Turnpike, the Beltway. He’s currently spending a few weeks in North Carolina. Not at the beach, but he seems okay with that. He’s even considering giving barbecue a try.

Meanwhile, the family’s become a bit attached.

My husband insists on calling him Jeffrey.

The younger son asks how he’s doing when he calls.

The older one hasn’t met him yet, but I’m sure he’ll embrace him, too. Maybe “embrace” is too strong a term. Jeff’s not exactly the type that you’d embrace.

Me? There are moments when my gaze shifts to the passenger side of the dashboard and I wonder how I’m ever going to quit this shell game. Am I getting weird(er) as I get older? Am I becoming That Woman with the Horseshoe Crab Shell on her Dashboard?

Maybe. But Jeff makes me smile. And he’s a great conversation starter. I don’t have to walk him, he’s well trained (despite what my husband thinks), and he loves a good road trip. He gave me a scene on the beach. And now he’s given me an essay.

Who would want to quit that?

I’m the adoptive mother of The World’s Weirdest Stray. Who, let’s be honest, never actually strayed at all until he met me. For now, at least, the crab stays. Unless he starts to smell. If he starts to smell, he’s out of here.

Be prepared, friends. The holiday card might be a bit unusual this year….