May 16 - Crab Arms

Have you ever tried to explain to your teenage daughter that the reason she woke up with giant crab claws instead of arms is because of a gypsy curse you brought about? It's not easy.
For starters, she's hysterical, and, you know, fair enough. I mean this is not something she could have seen coming. But still, if you can come to grips--sorry, bad choice of words. If you can accept that you've got the (working!) claws of a crustacean where you used to have arms, is it really that much of a cognitive leap to allow yourself to believe that your current claws-for-arms situation is the result of a curse? I mean, it had to be caused by something, right? Why not a curse? Especially when your own mom is trying (patiently!) to explain how it all came about. Speaking of which . . .
It was a busy night at the Crab Shack, and a couple of waitresses had called in sick, so I was having to pull down triple duty--managing, waiting, and dish washing because Harold still hasn't managed to find us a replacement for Raoul, and it's like, how freaking hard can it be to find someone to wash dishes in a beach town? Ain't like it's skilled labor.
But anyway, I'm busier than all get up, and in walks an eight top of gypsies who are in town with the carnival. And by the way, no, it's not racist to call them gypsies. That's what they call themselves. Anyway, in they come, and they proceed to order up a big ass tab. Pitcher after pitcher, entree after entree, all sorts of sides and appetizers, the whole bit. About half of them get the all you can eat crab feast and then proceed to share it with the other half that didn't order it, but I'm too busy doing a million other things to monitor it more closely even though I know what's going on.
Anyway, when it comes time to pay, they're playing dumb and questioning all the charges and saying they're not going to pay, and it all escalates, and finally I call the cops.
Fast forward about 15, 20 minutes and the cops arrive. And right away, their grandma or whoever it is is spitting on the cops and cursing, and causing a big old scene. So naturally, she gets arrested and--surprise, surprise--it turns out she's here illegally, and they're going to deport her now, and how could you be so cruel, and on and on and on. And as they're dragging her off, she's screaming and hollering at me, and one of the younger ones is like, "She's cursing you and your family." And I'm like, "Oh yeah? Well this oughtta be good. Tell me all about it." And she's like, "Your firstborn child will carry the burden of this travesty throughout her days" or something like that. And I'm like, "Oooookay? Can you be a little more specific?" And then the grandma shouts a bunch more and grabs a crab claw off the table, and she must've grabbed it really hard because it pricked her skin deep enough to draw blood. So the blood's running down her hand and she's yelling and hollering at me, and then finally she throws the claw at me really hard and it hits me in the face. Damn near hit me in the eye.
Well by now, the police have had enough and they finally haul her out of there, kicking and screaming the whole way--the grandma, that is. Not the cops, although some of them were using their outside voices, too.
Anyway, the police finally get the rest of the gypsies to pay the bill after arguing with them for another 30 minutes or so. But after that they leave, and eventually things calm down, and we call it a night and go home, and then the next day Susie wakes up, and, well, you know the rest.
She refused to go to school. Wouldn't even leave the house. The good news is that other than her claws, everything else about her was normal, but Harold and I had to help her do, well, everything: brush her teeth, comb her hair, eat, drink, um, go to the bathroom. Poor thing was humiliated and confused and scared, and I can't say that I blame her.
We wanted to help her any way we could, but we didn't know who to call. A doctor? A priest? A marine biologist? We tried Googling her particular affliction, but we didn't find much that helped us. Most of the sites we checked out told us we had to reverse the curse, and it's like, yeah, you think?
We decided to try to find the woman's family and see if there wasn't some way we could work it all out. And I'm not usually one for negotiating with terrorists, but that might be because I've never been in this kind of situation before. Things take on a whole new light when it's someone in your family instead of some hypothetical person you've never met.
Anyway, we tracked the rest of her family down, and they were a lot more reasonable than I was expecting. I think they felt bad for Susie.
Speaking of Susie, after a couple of weeks of sitting around the house, she decided to suck it up and go back to school, and I'll be impressed with her for the rest of my days for her decision. Ultimately, she was just, like, I'll tell the truth. Which actually kind of worked, because as crazy as the story was, it was true and she had the claws to prove it.
God bless the students and teachers at her school. They were all really supportive of her and didn't give her a hard time. She's still figuring out how to write, though, which is hard. But one good thing is that she's finally stopped sending so many text messages on her cell phone. So, there's that.
But anyway, the curse. In order to reverse it, we have to sort it out with the woman who invoked it in the first place, which will mean a trip to Romania. We'll have to wait until June when Susie's on summer vacation. And I hate the thought of leaving the Crab Shack during high season, but you gotta do what you gotta do.
But it shouldn't be too bad. We're going to tack on a few extra days and visit Germany while we're over there. Harold's got relatives there.