10 Things I love about East Boston.

#3 Riding the bus is always an adventure.

True story. Picture the scene. The back of your typical MBTA bus. There you will find me and my two Somerville friends, 3 Latino guys, 2 white girls with attitude, and a guy with a boom box. (The boom box is playing, but not “booming.”) Latino guys have a brown paper bag which they find hilarious for some inexplicable reason. Suddenly, one of the guys rustles around in the bag and pulls something out and puts it on the floor. Somerville friends and I try to ignore, but let’s face it, with the peals of laughter, it’s a scene. I spot the thing that the guy has put on the floor of bus and dear Lord it’s moving—crawling in fact, towards Somerville friend’s foot. But what the hell is it? Then my brain finally registers the shape. It’s a crab!. A tiny, black crab about the size of a quarter. About the same time that I realize it’s a crab everyone else sees it and there is not just one. Latino guys are playing with two more on their laps. The problem is that one white girl with attitude—we’ll just call here WGWA, doesn’t like crabs and commences freaking out. This of course only increases the hilarity for Latino guys. At this point WGWA begins screaming obsenities at Latino guys. “Get that f-cking thing away from me! If that f-cking thing touches me, I’m going to kick your ass! Then we’ll see what the f-ck is so f-cking funny, you f-cking a-holes.” Then the guy with the boom box decides that he needs to get in on the act. “You better watch out.” he warns WGWA. “You don’t want to catch his crabs. He, he, he.” Now repeat scene for seven more bus stops. Quoth Somerville friend, “I love this bus!"

PS. I still have no idea what the crabs were for. I'm guessing they were for bait. I do see people fishing in the Chelsea Creek quite often. I wonder how many three-eyed fish they pull out?