One of the highlights of our book club’s trip to Amelia Island last weekend was the discovery of, yes, a message in a bottle, on the storm-tossed beach in the wake of Tropical Storm Tammy.
My friend B found the bottle, bouncing in the surf, which was littered with debris from the storm. A Hefty ziplock bag, protecting a tantalizingly folded piece of paper, showed through the bottle’s green glass.
As a group, we decided to live, for a few hours, with the mysterious presence of the bottle. Unfortunately, the barnacles adhering to it made it a rather pungent guest, so the bottle was banished to the porch.
Before opening it, we decided make some guesses as to what its contents might be. A few of our supppositions were:
1. A cry for help from a woman who witnessed a crime (probably drug-related) and was subsequently kidnapped and being held captive on a yacht.
2. A woman stranded on a desert island, anxious about her lack of internet service, asking if the bottle’s discoverer would please post the enclosed message on her blog (this was not my guess, though I inspired it).
3. A homeschooling assignment.
4. A scorned female, who, in her moment of rejection, drank the bottle of wine, then enclosed a letter to her former lover with a lock of her hair, which she had shorn in her grief.
5. A man, in love with a woman he can’t have. As he can’t tell her or anyone else how he feels, he releases his passion in a love note, then consigns it to the sea.
6. A confession that cannot be told.
7. The numbers to a Swiss bank account.
And, now, for your suppositions. The tale will continue to unfold…tomorrow.
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A map to pirate booty?
I was also thinking a cofession (already taken). If I were to toss a bottle into the see I would poor my souls deepest burdens into writing, and hope that no one I knew would read it. Maybe not though - too much anxiety.
???
I was wondering where I had misplaced that bottle… please keep the contents secret, I don’t want people to know!
a map to whose booty, T?
i think the note was written by a man facing death, either by storm or steely bullet. he drinks as he writes. he writes as he lived. sad and alone.
Don’t ye be talkin’ to the captn’ like that there, Ash. Arrrrr…
Why is it have to be chick related!?
That’s so dicrimatory…I think it’s
a bottle full of porn!!!
That’s right!!! Porn!!!!
LOVE the fun new design.
OOOOOhhhhhh I can’t wait to hear what was in the bottle. Part of me just likes the pondering of what it was, that is almost better than knowing, the wondering, the guessing, the excitement of not knowing.
Ok nevermind about all that, I want to know what it was. I’ll be back.
ST, you know better than to feed Ash softballs…
Quincy, see # 5 (my supposition). I agree. I thought it was a guy. And we’ll see who’s right…tomorrow.
Hooray for Eddo and seasonal designs ! Boo to the rest of the guys for too much of 1 good joke. You just had to overdo the naked lady thing.
Johnny Carson had a rule of thumb when it came to 1 good joke - ride it for three good jokes. Go back and listen to his monologues and you’ll hear him hit one topic with three rapid-fire jokes in a row. I figured naked ladies were good for five or six, but hey, that’s just me.
Ash: If it was good enough for J.C. it’s good enough for me.
EM: I think it’s a Genie (male), except in the case of ‘I Dream of Jeannie’ which was of course a female, but I’m losing my train of thought. Back to the Genie, now you can’t usually see Genies until they come out, so what we see is probably a note from said Genie. Since Genies are magical he probably knew that EM’s friend would find the bottle and EM would take it home and get some play on the internet with it. Further messin’ with EM he will hide a message inside a message to make it even more of a mystery. Or, not.
I wrote the message to a long lost love while I was in the Carribean, we met on a Cruise Ship, we fell hopelessly in love, and then when the cruise was over she told me that she was to be sold into slavery in order to free her parents from an evil Puerto Rican Mafia lord.
Torn between love and the safety of home I left her and vowed to return to save her. When I returned to find my love, I found that she was not living a life of slavery but that of a queen. She seemed ridiculously happy and I couldn’t bear to take her away from that happiness.
Broken hearted, I wrote a message to my love and sent it from the Caribbean Island of St. Croix. Knowing that like my love, this message would drift on the seas for an eternity and hopefully someone would find it and welcome it with open arms.
Wow, Eddo. Nice!
And AD. So, what would your three wishes be?
Eddo - beautiful.
that is just plain cruel
I would wish for peace for the world.
Then I would ask for hunger and poverty to disappear.
Then I would ask, “what the hell is in that bottle at EM’s house?”
I wrote the message. It’s a bitter tirade about being teased by two-part posts and cliffhangers. I stopped short of threatening violence, but only because the object of my torture was too far away to effectively intimidate. In the end, I resorted to false flattery and sarcastic praise, which still had no effect. In the end, I sucked it up and just waited.
Oh, I wasn’t happy about it, but I waited all the same.
I think it is a letter from the IRS as a part of their new “SURPRISE! You are being Audited!” Campaign.
I love the new look!
When the great mathematician Shizuo Kakutani (whose daughter is now a book critic for the NY Times) was sailing over from Japan he sat on the ship and did math problems each morning. He would work all day on a problem and then in the evening seal it up in a bottle with instructions that if it was found it should be sent to Princeton University (where he was going to teach). The trip took over two weeks. To this day none of his bottles have been reported found or mailed to Princeton.
Please tell us what it said. And soon!
ok ok… we’ve waited…
I am sure the note says…
“Send more wine.”
at this point i fear even a naked genie in the form of George Clooney would be anticlimatic. A buy one get one free at Gucci will have probably expired and a “hello” from D.B. Sweeny could not hold my attention over night. So, do tell AF and lets end this once and for all.
W.
Oh, I do LOVE holding you all in the palm of my hand…
Of course, several of you have in your power to make me suffer. As I well know, payback is hell.
oh suffering… we’ll see what we can manage darlin’