Salutations, Gumboot Nation. I’m back from my travels, grateful to Kim Fenton for holding down the fort while I was away. Speaking of travel — did you hear the one about that time I tried to smuggle illegal contraband? You mean when my Trader Joe’s cookie butter was confiscated in Palm Springs? Not that time. (Word to the wise: butters of all kinds are liquids to TSA. Don’t try drinking them.) My daughter and I do joke that that’s how I’ll go one day — in Darwin Award fashion, from swallowing peanut butter too fast. Death by butter.
No, I’m talking about the time I tried to bring a weapon of mass destruction home from Cancun. The weapon? A conch — the kind you might blow to kick off the Higgledy Piggledy parade. The year prior, my husband and I had been a little too delighted when Hasu brought out the official Yoga by the Sea conch. We vied for the coveted role of blower. Who won? As a former trumpet player, let’s just say I know what an embouchure is and I’m not afraid to use it. I could hold notes longer. Doug? Taller. More charming. Beard. It’s a toss up.
Rather than continue the battle, we did what any couple would do: picked up a second conch in Mexico. Not wanting to risk our precious sea horn, we packed it in our carry‑on, only to be told: “No shells.” It felt like that scene in Wayne’s World when Wayne strums Stairway to Heaven in a guitar shop, only to be cut off by a sign: NO STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN. No Stairway. Denied.
As I protested, the TSA agent, guitar‑clerk serious, pointed to a sign reading: NO SEASHELLS. Wayne and I, both trapped by oddly specific prohibitions. Has someone been clubbed over the head by one? Or, like weary guitar clerks tired of endless amateur Stairways, had Cancun agents simply grown sick of inspecting every sunburnt tourist’s tidal trumpet?
Irregardless, a wave of brilliance hit as I cleared the metal detector. For the first time ever, I was flying priority. Oh, this story is SO not over. I turned back, pointed at the garbage can, and said, “Please give me my shell. I’m going back.” Shell in hand, I sprinted through the airport and used my priority status to swaddle Poseidon’s kazoo inside three ergonomic neck pillows, stuffed it in a backpack marked fragile, and hoped for the best.
Dying to know if it made it? There’s only one way to find out. Come to the Higgledy Piggledy parade this Sunday at 11:11 a.m. and listen for the horn from the deep. Here are some other Creek Daze highlights:
Music on the mandala stage from 11:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., kicking off with DJ Little D, and on the Slow Sunday stage from noon to 3:30 p.m.
• Browse the tables at the renowned Library Book Sale from noon to 3 p.m.
• Get happier at the One Straw Tiny Farm Happy Hour from 1 to 6 p.m.
Creek Daze: where shells — and other TSA‑banned treasures — finally get their encore. TSA says no. Roberts Creek says… blow!
