The Oyster Chronicles, Part Two: The Reality

So firstly, let me make it clear that "The Plan" didn't work out. I didn't check the restaurant hours for Saltwater Cowboys, so my dad and I drove around for about an hour before finding a non-seedy bar location in which to obtain oysters. After walking into a grill and wing place to check their menu, we awkwardly darted back out the door to the waitress's distain. Luckily, in the same shopping center was "The Seafood Kitchen." Originally we feared it might be a strictly fried seafood place..but upon inquiry, they indeed offered Oysters in a variety of forms. They had somewhat badly done fish taxidermy, or fish replicas on the walls. There was a Sheepshead mounted in the wall behind my dad. The place was very cute though, with warm orangey wood on all the booths and tables. The red-headed waitress, probably in her mid-40's, was very pleasant in a weather-worn way. It was probably about one in the afternoon, so plenty of natural light was coming in from the window behind me.
After ordering, (my dad of course had to inform the waitress that "his daughter wanted to try raw oysters." The waitress tried to hide her amused expression.) I noticed that there were ten ceiling fans above me, two rows of five in the proper living-room variety. (You can just see the top of the waitress's head there)
And Ta-da! Fifteen minutes later, half a dozen Oysters laid out on a plate. I gotta say, They are not visually appealing. The white interior of the shell is helpful, but when you get around to poking at the oyster flesh, it's watery, mushy, and fishy smelling. It became obvious why people religiously add condiments to their portions. That big one was super scary.
Anyway, I was directed to make sure the oyster was detached from the shell. I think at the point i threw in the word "abductor muscle" to prove that I had done my research. I squeezed some lemon juice on my first one and ate it out of the shell, putting everything I know about their gills, their colorless blood,and their tiny three valved hearts out of my mind. Oysters taste the way swamps smell... Like that day last week when it had first rained and the air was fresh with ripe bacteria. I know this is sounding pretty nasty, but in truth I didn't mind them.
Dad ended up taking one out of the bunch. He prefers them on crackers with hot sauce.
He has an adorable food face. I ate my second one this way, and was told to try horseradish on my next one. After tasting that one, I had to place where I'd had that flavor before, and asked if it was in cocktail sauce. it is.
This is my food face. That's a mouthful of oyster right there. I found eating them on crackers was more pleasurable in that they absorbed some of the slimey-ness. When eaten this way, the Oysters just had a fishy aftertaste, not quite the fishing trips in marshes of my childhood.
All gone. There's some good light in that photo, i thought. Shells are good at being luminous. I turned the shells over at the one point. Occasionally you'll find rather pretty oyster shells with the layers of gray, but these were unusually shaped some were in the green family in color.
In addition to my raw oyster experience, i wanted to see oysters in another way. I blindly ordered "Oyster Stew." When it arrived, it just looked like warm buttery-milk, which is pretty much what it was. There were a few steamed oysters in the bottom. Steamed, they taste a bit more like clams, similar muscle texture. My dad said Oyster Stew was typically made with more a cream base...but mine was pretty much made with milk. It was alright. The fish sandwich the popped up afterwards was to die for. If you end up down by the beach (a bit past the oasis, i think) head over to the Seafood Kitchen, they have really good prices. It's a bit too bad that none of my roommates like seafood, I'd be down there a lot more often. Once we were back on the road, i conned my dad into taking me to get my hair cut. We went over to Haircuttery on 312. We waited for a while and watched a few indecisive pre-teens and a woman who knew more about how her husband's hair should be cut than he did. My name was eventually called by a rather harassed-looking woman in red. She seemed more excited when I showed her the picture of what i wanted. The shampoo smelt like lemon (or maybe orange) Pledge. I didn't talk to her too much. Unless a stranger starts asking me questions, I'm unlikely to blab to them profusely. I also didn't really want to distract her. She (I learned her name was Jill) became very devoted to rendering that picture on my head. She cut my hair and even used these weird texture scissors that had gaps that cut out large chunks for layering, and then as she was blowdrying it, she decided that she hadn't cut it short enough and continued to re-cut everything an extra inch more. That may have been the best Twenty bucks I've ever spent on a haircut. She did a very nice job. Her daughter is due to deliver her second baby any day now. Jill's going to go in the delivery room with her.

And after my haircut, they had a jar of lollipops at the register, just like at Great Clips. When I was a kid, I use to sit in one of the empty chairs, twirling around while my dad had some lady clip his hair down short. After attempting patience during the process, i was always offered a dum dum from the lady before we left. I snuck this one before leaving.