Clam Digging!

Today the group invited me to go with them out to Gaston's beach (which I had only been to once before and only inside the restaurant).  So after I finished my chores for the day (i.e. cleaning my house and washing my filthy car), I grabbed a towel and headed off to the beach with them.  As we drove up, we noticed the beach seemed to be a lot closer than Judy and Paul (Erma's daughter and son-in-law) remember it......*insert loud game show buzzer sound*  It was not the beach.  Apparently, ever since the crazy floods last February, there has been a giant stagnant "pond" sitting between the road and the beach which you have to walk about 1/4 of a mile around just to get to the beach area.  Fortunately it was a lovely day so we didn't mind the walk.  Seeing as it is January, the water was frigid, so a few of us decided to take a walk instead.  As we were walking along we noticed a few boys standing next to a pile of something.  As we approached we recognized that they were clams that the boys had just caught.  The guys with me asked me if I could see how much the boys wanted for their pile of about 40 clams or if they were even willing to sell them.  As soon as I asked the boys got these huge grins on their faces and quickly blurted out "Un dolar!"  An older, wiser clam digging boy had overheard and ran to their "rescue" to help these little guys get more than $1 for their mountain of clams (he, of course, expected his cut from the little rascals but they were not about to share in their earnings for their work).  Anyways, we negotiated and ended up with 40 more clams in our hands and 60 less pesos in our pockets.  The boys were ecstatic.  As we were negotiating, I noticed there was an older man in the water who appeared to also be digging for clams.  Once my part was done in the negotiation, I ran in the water and hastily asked this older gentleman to teach me how to find my own clams.  After about a 3 second lesson, I got the hang of it and found my very own clams!  Unfortunately some guy claiming to be the "game warden" came by, dressed in rags mind you, and told me I could not keep them because they were too small.  He showed me the size they needed to be so I throw those back and headed in again.  In less than 5 minutes I ended up with 2 of my very own (quite beefy) clams.  I was and still am very proud to say that I learned how to dig for clams today!  :-D