A typical summer vacation with a pool, beach, lounging, pickleball would be the main activities for the week. There were no specific plans laid out. Things flowed naturally. No pressure or stress, just fun and relaxation.
Our beach vacation in Gulf Shores started out just as I imagined, but it wasn’t long before a glitch changed the direction of our holiday. On the second night, my wife Mimi and I took the golf cart to the beach. She had recently received a metal detector and wanted to look for coins or rings on the beach. The sun was setting but there was still plenty of light and we only planned to hunt for a short time. We didn’t want to miss dinner since grilled salmon was on the menu tonight.
We searched for almost an hour and were ready to go back to the house when Mimi had a strong hit on the metal detector. I took the shovel and dug into the sand to find our treasure. Up to now we hadn’t found anything of value, just bottle caps, a dime and a pair of broken eyeglasses. We weren’t expecting to find a doubloon but hoped for something special. I sifted carefully sifting through the sand to make sure nothing was missed. I had dug down about a foot when I found the treasure, but it wasn’t what I expected. I was a ring but still attached to a finger. Mimi jumped back when she recognized what it was. I dropped it.
I scooped it up with the shovel. “Holy crap!”
“Is it real?” Mimi asked.
I inspected it closely. “No, I don’t think so. It looks like a rubber finger.” I pushed on it and shook my head. “It’s a fake finger but the ring is real. It's cheap but real.”
“Well, this will surprise everyone back at the house.”
I put it in the bag, and we headed back, when a beach ranger walked by. I stopped him and showed him the rubber finger with a ring.
He picked it up to examine it. “I haven’t seen one of these in a while.”
“Oh! So, you’ve seen them before.”
“Yes, a few years back someone would find one of these every couple of months, but it didn’t always have a ring.” He handed it back. “No one’s found any recently.”
“Left over from years ago?”
“Yeah, maybe.” He shrugged. “Rumor was, there was a curse related to it.”
“A curse? What was the curse?”
“I don’t know, some bad stuff. I don’t remember the specifics, but you can check the Internet.”
Now I have a treasure with an interesting story to tell.
We drove the golf cart home, parked, and walked into the house. My son, Pat, asked if we found anything of value.
“Yes,” Then I threw the finger. He reached to catch it then pulled his hand back when he saw the finger. I laughed and he instantly knew it was fake.
Pat picked up the finger and said, “Some joker planted it?” He smiled. “Actually, that’s pretty funny.”
My daughter, Maureen scrunched her face. “No, that’s just creepy.”
Pat took the finger and placed it in the middle of the table as a centerpiece. The grandkids were more curious than appalled, as kids usually are. After tossing it around we set it aside and ate dinner.
I looked at Pat. “You know the weirdest thing about the finger is that there’s supposed to be a curse attached to it.”
Pat asked, “A curse. What is it?”
“I’m not sure. Try looking up Martinique Curse on Google. There’s a lengthy story about it and the people who found the finger.” I rubbed my chin. “It would be a great marketing ploy to get people to come here to check it out.” My son- in-law, John, was already searching online.
“Sounds like a scam,” Pat said.
John scratched his finger as he read about the curse. “It does, but it’s most likely the Itchy Finger Hex. The only cure is drinking prickly pear margaritas.”
Pat shrugged. “Sounds flaky but the remedy resolves my issues.”
What started out as a weird discovery turned into a funny story. I’m sure over time our family will blow it up to become a more elaborate yarn.
We all went to bed by 10:30 p.m. and slept until the grandkids woke up the sleepiest the next morning. After breakfast we headed to the big pool, and as expected we met up with the family from the other two houses. It was chaos with twenty-six at this family reunion. Some of our gang spent time at the beach, some played pickleball and some rode around on golf carts or bicycles. It was another fun, relaxing day. We relayed the story about the ring finger, which got better every time, as good tales do. Everyone wanted to see it, so we brought it back after lunch for show-and-tell.
There were four girls celebrating birthdays that week. We wanted to do something special so we held an ice cream social. A gift would be needed for each of the girls. A necklace seemed to be the perfect gift. I mean, what’s better than a necklace for a young girl? We wanted it to be something local, something meaningful, something memorable.
“I’ve got it.” I held up the fake finger as if I solved a major problem. “But I need help.” A finger necklace. What could be better?
Mimi knew immediately what I was planning and said, “Oh! Hell no. You need a seashell necklace.”
This battle was lost so I conceded. The next day, Pat and I went to the beach to look for some seashells. As we drove to the beach, Pat complained about allergies flaring up because his fingers itched.
I said. “Mine were itching too. Could be the high level of pollen here.”
Our survey of the beach for seashells yielded enough shells to make four necklaces, plus an unexpected find of an old bottle. Finding the bottle gave me an idea which I wanted to pursue.
When we got back to the house, I explained my idea. Collect money from everyone and put it in the bottle along with the ring and a note. Perfect. And use the rubber finger as the cork. We could all go down to the beach and throw the bottle in the ocean and watch it float away. Whoever found it would have money and a story along with my phone number. We all agreed it sounded like the idea had potential. Who knows? Someday we may get a phone call from a stranger in another country.
I collected $10 from each family and added another $10 to make $100. That seemed like a good amount. The next day we all went down to the beach. Three of the youngest adults threw the bottle in the ocean, but each time it quickly returned. They all blamed their poor throw on their itchy fingers. Finally, we decided to get the eleven year-old pitcher, Mason to give it a try. He hurled it as far as he could, and it finally floated away. Success!
The next few days were filled with more time at the beach, pool or playing pickleball. Mimi and her sister, Ann, made the seashell necklaces for the birthday girls. We decided to hand them out at dinner the night before we left. My sister, Rose, made a reservation for all of us at Captain Jack’s. Their food was supposed to be finger-lickin-good. I’m not sure how she managed to do that with such a big party, but whatever she did, it worked. We were in a separate room at the restaurant with one other large group.
As we sat down, I received a call from a guy named Chris. He called to say he found the bottle with the money, the ring and rubber finger which we used as the cork. Chris thanked us for the $100 in the bottle. They were out having dinner celebrating the start of their vacation.
“Wow, that was quick, I expected it to take a lot longer.”
He said, “Finding the bottle was a great start to our vacation.”
I asked, “Where did you find the bottle?”
“I was on a kayak in Martinique when the bottle floated by.”
“That’s funny. We thought someday we would get a call, but never expected it to be this soon.” As we talked, I looked over at the other table and spotted someone holding up a bottle with what looked like a finger sticking out the top. I immediately knew the other group was the recipient of our bottle donation.
Both Chris and I had been relaying the phone conversation to the others in our family. Chris and his group must have figured out who we were as well, because ten minutes later the waitress delivered six bowls of fingerling potatoes to our table as we sat sipping our margaritas. We raised our glasses and toasted Chris and his crew just as their waitress brought them two pitchers of prickly pear margaritas that we sent. They thanked us even though they weren’t aware that this was more of a medicinal margarita for itchy fingers than a welcome drink.
