April 24, 2008...6:39 am
Eel Rescue
I was a lifeguard when I was younger, but this was the strangest rescue I ever made.
I saved an eel today. I couldn’t just let it lie there in the gutter next to the fish truck it had fallen or jumped out of. I figured if it was smart enough to escape from the truck headed for it its doom, I should take the initiative to help it back to its freedom by carrying it back to the sea. Survival of the fittest, right?
You can imagine how it looked–a silly blonde girl running a half mile down the road with my arms outstretched in front of me, carrying an eel wrapped in a towel. There I was, running at top speed, past puzzled Koreans wondering where I was going with their lunch.
Once I reached the water I hopped over the safety rail, stumbled down a step incline of sea boulders and released the eel back into its natural habitat. However it did not immediately swim away into the deep water, waving goodbye as I expected it to. It just laid there belly up. I had to turn it right side up again. ”Off you go little eel,” but the tide kept pushing it back amongst the rocks in the shallow water. His fins just weren’t strong enough to get him into the deep water.
I had to take matters into my own hands. I removed my shoes, picked up the eel and waded out into the water until it was up to my thighs. I put the eel into the water, watched for a moment waited for him to swim away; then I trudged back to the land, where about a dozen men were watching, took off my socks, wrung out the bottoms of top layer of pants the best I could, and put my sneakers back on.
Once, I reached the road I turned around. It was then that I saw the little eel going further out into the sea. However he was not swimming as I imagined but rather flying through the air in the beak of a seagull. Oh well, it’s the thought that counts.
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