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	Wisdumb
	Bounty from the Sea, Part II (1-19-03) We were enjoying some small, closed out surf at Manhattan Beach one day, long ago. It was Glenn and I with some others for moral support and peer pressure. So we are out there dropping in on each other and trying to run each other over when someone spots something floating out to sea. The conditions are clean, sunny and glassy with great visibility of the smog-shrouded horizon. Clearly there is something out there. It is like an iceberg with less than 10% above the surface. It bobs just barely above and below the surface with each passing ripple. The sun reflects of its shiny covering or, dare we say skin? We hem and haw for quite a while and then elect Glenn to paddle out and see what it is. He gets within about 10 feet and slows down. He is out about 50-100 feet out further than us so he can’t hear or is ignoring our yelling and questions. I watch him slowly get closer and eventually nudge the thing with his board. Luckily, it is not the top knob of the horn of some mad, sleeping monster or some crap. Instead, he grabs it and starts dragging it towards shore. We have worked ourselves up into a frenzy, as usual, so we are splashing around like skitterish animals as he passes through our mob. He gets it to shore and we all see that it is a dark plastic trash bag, like the one we were supposed to take out before going to the beach. By this time, the lifeguard truck has pulled up. Who wouldn’t? Now that I think about it, there is nothing that says this bag isn’t full of $100 bills or bales of illicit drugs for us to unload and pay for college, or lawyers. We gently pull the bag apart. We have to tear it since the top is tied shut and looks like too much work. Instead of the expected loot, the bag is full of headless, bloodless chickens! We take a step back in disgust and semi-disappointment. The lifeguard picks up the bag and hauls it off to, we assume, the dumpster. Meanwhile, we all speculate that the contents had to be for some voodoo ceremony on a boat and had been dumped overboard with one of the dancers twisted an ankle or something. Or at least I did, still savoring the deliciousness of the moment. more stories >>