You woke up tired with a headache. Yes, it is ten in the morning, but you don’t want to get out of bed. It is cloudy, cold, and sad outside your bed. You stay in bed there for a bit longer which grows into another hour in bed. That is when you drag yourself out of bed, slowly make it down to your kitchen. The  coffee pot fights with you and the pancakes you are making take longer than you want. Once your meal is ready you watch one of your favorite television shows even though you know you have things to do. You tell your self, “It’s Saturday, it is okay to relax.”  The show ends and you now have to rush to get ready.

It’s ten minutes after noon and you are out the door. You drive towards the beach and hope that there is a fire pit available, since your friend has told you to be there before noon to get the fire pit. You arrive at the beach and smile. There is one pit left. You did not fail and even had a nice morning.

You walk the long beach to the one pit without the clutter of people and their things. It is not until you are near it that you see why it is abandoned without a person to claim it. Sand from the beach was piled into it until the sand created a table top. There was no room for fire or anything else besides the sand.

Now, do you sit and claim the pit no one wanted or take your chance that some one will leave by the time your church has its gathering.  You decide to stay and ask a friend to bring a shovel. You then ask another and another,  until someone finally has a shovel in a town where hardly anyone uses a shovel.

Once you have a plan you sit and relax.You take out your kindle to read a book. That is when you realize you kindle only has 20 percent of its battery left. You read the book trying to ignore the fact that the battery is draining. It drains fast and soon the computerized voice tells you so. You read on hoping to get farther in the book that you are just now getting attached to. Finally the battery is too far into the red for your liking so you turn it off.

As the wind blows and you start to get chilled. You are now thankful that you have a pair of leggings to go under your skirt and a cardigan to go over your tank top. As you wrap your self up a young lady walks over with a shovel in her hand. She tells you that you can use the shovel to which you respond with a grateful, “Thank you,” as your leg gets stuck in your legging and you fall over. With a smile you accept the shovel and start to dig out the fire pit.  It does not take long before a fire get fit.

After returning the shovel you sit and wait. You look at your phone to see what is going on in the world and see that you still have hours before the person with the wood will show up and another hour before the fire is supposed to actually start. There is a notebook and Bible in your duffle bag.

The  notebook is what is taken from your bag, but nothing besides a few lines in the shape of the beach’s life guard station is drawn on the pages. Not a single word is written before you put it back in the yellow and blue plaid duffle bag.

There is more waiting and people watching. A few people ask you, “Are you saving the fire pit?” They ask as if there would be another reason your blue sheet is stretched out next to the fire pit in question. A woman looking for a pit for a sixteen year old’s birthday party comes by, but their gathering is happening at the same time and with a large amount of people. Still more people ask you if you are saving the pit that should be obvious that you are saving and that you dug out.

Around three o’clock an older gentleman who looks as if he tries to stay healthy walks over. “Is there anyway we can share this pit?”

You tell him something along the lines that it may be possible and the two of you start to figure out if it actually is. Once it is decided that your parties will not clash it is decided that you will share the pit that you have saved for almost 3 hours with this doctor man. That is when he tells you that he will share his meal with you. For a moment you want to tell him it’s not necessary, but before you can he tells you what he is cooking. He and his doctor friends bought lobster, red beautiful lobster. The seafood that belongs to the other coast. The shellfish that your home has, the delicious food that you have not had in the shell for a long time.

He then leaves to get his things and your roommate shows up. She talks about her day and you tell her about what just happened. The guy comes back and you talk to him a little but mostly focus on the roommate that has joined you.

More doctors and their spouses come trickling towards the fire. Soon their fire is going and they are finding amusement in cooking their lobster. You do not want to intrude, so you talk and focus on your roommate and her friend that shows up.

Your roommate does not stay for too long though. She needs to eat something, so once the lobster is almost done she leaves. You are than called over to be one of the first to enjoy the amazing food that they prepared.  One man, that is about your age, so around late twenties or early thirties  asks you if you need help as you crack the arms off and dislocate the tail for the head. You both smile as he realizes you know what you are doing. Still you let him help you cut the shell. The other cut the shells off the other lobsters which seems so foreign to you. What about the crackers that squeezes the  shell until it breaks?

You figure they had their way of doing it and you had your way. Everyone is enjoying themselves and you are having free lobster with good people. No matter what happens from that point on, you had free lobster because you shared what you could.

 

This is a true story about my last Saturday.