The Lucky Bottle

The Lucky Bottle

There’s an old saying: If life throws you lemons, take them and make lemonade!

I would like to amend that saying to this new, Marci Carter, adage: If life throws you lemons, take them, a tequila bottle; and make a Margarita!

Now why would I want to re-phrase a perfectly good adage, you might fairly ask?

Well, sit right back and let me tell you how I turned the most humiliating moment of my life into a Margarita, not only for myself, but for my friend, Lydia, too. Only then will understand why I want to change this old saying into my very own motto. Even if you don’t agree with me, you’re sure to get a smile.

It all started when Lydia and I went on vacation to her home state of Florida a few months ago….


“Haven‘t you had enough sun, yet, Lydia?” I asked my friend lying beside me in the shallow surf of Lagoona Beach.

Lydia lay there with her eyes closed, ignoring me. Her arms and legs undulated languidly in the shallow water each time a wave washed over her. Her black bathing suit, in stark contrast to her pale skin, reminded me uncomfortably of Shamu, the killer-whale we had seen at Sea world two days previously.

“I thought we were going to do a little fellow-shopping while we were here?” I reminded her..

“This is the last day of our trip,” I persisted, when she remained silent.

I watched a much, too hairy, middle-aged man in a ‘Speedo’ bathing suit saunter past us, following the trail of two nymphs wearing tiny scraps of bathing suits between their well-tanned buttocks. He strutted after them like a graying peacock. The heavy gold chain he wore on his shriveled chest, sparkled grotesquely in the bright sun.

“This place is nothing like I remember, Marci, ” Lydia sighed. “I wish we hadn’t come here.” Lydia opened one eye and peered at me seriously. “I should have known we’d have bad luck here. This is where Todd and I met, you know.”

Todd Kincaid was Lydia’s ex-husband. Their divorce had devastated her. Seeing what Lydia had gone through, made me thankful that I was still single at thirty-nine.

“No. I didn’t know this is where you met him.”

The peacock shot me a porcelain smile while he ogled Lydia’s exposed flesh in passing.

“Why did you want to come here?” I looked away from the peacock’s dentured smile as I questioned my friend.

Lydia, blissfully unaware of her admirer, rolled over onto her stomach. Sand was stuck to
her backside but she didn’t seem to notice.

“I don’t know. I thought we’d meet some guys. Have a little fun,” she mumbled uncertainly.

I turned my head to avoid watching the peacock’s scrawny backside as he strolled on past us, scattering sea-gulls in his wake. They screeched in protest as they took flight; squabbling loudly in mid-air over a morsel one gull clutched tightly in his orange beak.

“Every man we’ve seen this last two weeks is either too old; too fat; too married; or just too gross, to even consider dating,” Lydia complained, turning her head just in time to see a small group of young gods, sporting garish tattoos and glittering body piercings, sprint past us.

In unison, their heads turned to admire the backside of a thong-clad beauty lying face-down on a beach towel not far from us. “Or, too young,” she added dispiritedly.

“We could always drop by that little bar, The Thirsty Parrot, before we call it a day,” I suggested hopefully, remembering the picturesque bamboo shack we had passed earlier on our way to the beach. It had boasted a thatched canopy that was convenient to beach goers who wanted a quick libation without having to go inside. Beneath it’s shade, several unattached males had been lounging against the bar when we had passed.

Lydia inhaled a deep breath of the tangy air and sighed forlornly before crossing her arms in front of her and laying her head down across them, regardless of the sandy water washing over her, too plump, body. She’d gained a lot of weight since her divorce from Todd.

Seeing the sandy water washing over Lydia, however, reminded me of my own discomfort. I stood up, dripping water and wet sand off of my own slim form. The bright sun behind me cast a stripe of shadow across Lydia’s body, adding to my illusion of her being a beached whale. I licked salt water from my lips and tried to re-arrange my gritty bathing suit.

“I’m getting sand down my top, and other places too personal to mention, laying here in the shallows. Aren’t you?” I asked her.

“You’re just not used to beaches,” Lydia chuckled, suddenly in a lighter mood. “Just wade out about chest deep and take off your bathing suit. Shake it around in the water. It’ll wash out the sand.”

“You‘re kidding, right?” I asked, shivering, as visions of monstrous shark attacks flashed through my mind.

“We left Jaws back at the MGM studio two days ago, Marci,” commented Lydia dryly, looking at me over her shoulder. Her look said, “I know what you’re thinking.”

“Just do it. You’ll feel better. When you get back, we’ll go on up the Thirsty Parrot, if you really want to,” she enticed. “ I could do with a stiff drink. Have you ever tried ‘Sex on the Beach’?” She grinned wickedly.

“You know I don’t drink,” I reminded her.

I wasn’t against drinking alcoholic beverages. I just couldn’t develop a taste for the stuff, though I had been offered just about every kind there was under the sun over the years, except, I guess, for ‘Sex on the Beach’. I’d never heard of that one.

“Well, that’s what I’m going to have,” Lydia waggled her eyebrows at me. “We both could do with a little sex on the beach!” Then laughing at her own joke, she tossed her wet mane of hair over her shoulder suggestively, in a parody of the Mae West, come-thither look, before laying back down.

Leaving her lying there, I waded cautiously out into the most breath-taking shade of aquamarine-colored water my Indiana--born and bred-- eyes had ever seen. It was like wading into a liquid jewel. The waves rose in gentle swells around me. The water was so clear I could see the bottom. Paradise, I reflected, sinking down into it’s cool depths, up to my neck; putting all thoughts of Jaws firmly out of my mind. When in Florida, do as the natives do, I mused, peeling off my floral-print swim-suit then swishing it around in the water before donning it again.

Lydia was right about the water washing the sand out. Feeling much more comfortable, I lay back and closed my eyes. Sounds of the beach faded to a low murmur, like the background noise in a restaurant that is there but not really heard, as I floated along, letting the water soothe my lonely spirit.

Suddenly, without warning, something hard and cold bumped against my outstretched hand. “Jaws! Oh God, I‘m going to be eaten!” I thought and started to scream; but, sinking into the water, I inhaled a healthy lungful of Lagoona Bay instead.

Strangling on seawater, and blinded by wet hair, I clawed at the water, and felt something touch my hand--again! Beyond frightened, I thrashed about blindly; trying to get the hair out of my eyes while coughing to clear my lungs.

Then--it touched me for a third time. Totally panicking now, I gave vent to the terror inside me, Convinced I was about to perish, my piercing scream rent the peaceful air like a Banshee‘s cry, clearing the last of the water from my lungs in the process.

I was oblivious to the reaction my scream generated on the beach--which I had finally spotted through parted strands of clinging hair. Using my hands as paddles, I started towards that seemingly far-off Mecca, slogging through water that had turned into chilled molasses; slowing me down.

I snatched my hand from water, however, when it closed over something round and solid, and very un-fish-like. I was disgusted with myself, though, when I finally calmed down enough to identify the object.

“A bottle?” I cried, watching my nemesis bob innocently in the gentle surf. “I can’t believe it.”

“Lady, are you all right,” asked a young lifeguard. He had quickly responded to my screams. He rose up in the waist-high water, like a young Neptune rising out of the sea, and stood regarding me stoically.

Mortified, I looked up at him through my tangled hair. “Y-yes. I guess so.” My face burned under his patronizing, ‘tourist,’ glare.

“Marci! Marci!” huffed Lydia struggling through the surf towards me.

“Oh, God. I’ll never live this down,” I groaned to the lifeguard, as we watched Lydia’s ungainly effort to reach us.

As if it didn’t like being ignored, the bottle washed against my thigh.

I picked it up and examined it. Bluish-green, it looked, against the aqua-colored water. . Just an ordinary, round, glass bottle with a long neck; made water-tight by the cork plugging its mouth. It had once contained tequila, according to the ragged remains of the Jose Quervos label on it.

“It was the bottle.” I held it up for the lifeguard and Lydia, who had finally made it out to us. “It bumped against me and scared me. I’m sorry.” My words came out in a nervous rush. I was anxious to put this moment--truly my life’s most embarrassing--behind me.

“You got spooked by a bottle!” Lydia demanded incredulously, trying to catch her breath. Her ample bosoms heaved up and down with a life of their own as she stared indignantly at me.

“Let me help you back to the beach, Lady,” said the lifeguard tactfully, taking my arm, before Lydia could say anything further.

I clutched the bottle to my chest like a talisman, ignoring the gauntlet of people lined up on the beach that I would have to pass to get to The Thirsty Parrot. For once, Lydia was going have a drinking partner--me!

Now, here is where a total ‘lemon’ of a day, turned into a Margarita.

At the Thirsty Parrot, Lydia ran into an old school friend of hers, Calvin Bronsted. He was now a divorced, and very successful, real estate agent from her home town of Clearwater. He’d heard the story of the bottle that had “attacked” me. Everyone, it seemed, was snickering about it. He came to our table to see the culprit. Lydia and I were drinking Margaritas in salute to my “attack” bottle. We invited Calvin to join us.

The rest is history!

When we got home, Lydia quit the insurance company where we worked; moved back to Florida to be with Calvin; lost thirty pounds; and developed a tan. She might even get that sex on the beach she had wanted, because she and Calvin are getting married next month.

She calls my bottle, her lucky bottle, and has made me several lucrative offers for it.
Nothing could induce me to sell it, however. She isn’t the only one who considers the bottle, lucky.

As it turned out, there was a note inside my bottle from a fifth grade student named Anne Marie Durham, of Seaside Elementary, in Harbor Town, Maine. Her class was studying ocean currents. They had released the bottles as part of an experiment. The note was a request to anyone who found the bottle to email her at her home address.

Her widowed uncle, Harold Durham, answered my email; and we have exchanged many more since. Now, Harold has invited me up to visit, and, of course, meet Anne Marie-- who lives with him.

Suddenly, I feel like smelling the sea air again.

“Cheers, everyone”

Word Count--1987