"Welcome to the South Sweetheart"

I sat there my eyes stinging, face red, my hair peppered with specks of crawfish meat.
Frozen I had no idea what to do.

Reese and I had been dating for a grand total of 22 hours, but this night I had a date of a different type. 

My first date with crawfish.

It was two years ago. 

I sat in Shreveport for the first time surrounded by all of Reese's friends.

We had been at the lake all day culminating in my first crawfish boil.
Reese had joked "hey, let's not show her how to peel a crawfish"
I though he was kidding. Apparently no one else got the joke.

I stared into a ice chest full of boiled red creatures with large claws and googly eyes.

I had to play it cool I was on Louisiana turf now.

I scooped up my share and had a seat not knowing where to begin.

Reese had gone inside to get a drink. Still I sat staring blankly down at a pile of red crustaceans.

I leaned over to Reese's best friend and asked for some advice on where to start. I was met with a laugh and no help at all.

"I want to see if you can figure it out on your own" he scoffed.

I stalled, watched and attempted to do the same thing as everyone else. 

Basically I just didn't want to look like the helpless south Texas girl.

So I grabbed the little creature …and then

POP! 

The crawfish EXPLODED. Exploded. 

How I have no idea, but I sat covered in crawfish meat and juice for a good 20 seconds before anyone noticed what happened. My eyes were burning, my throat wanting to let out a scream but I had only met these people a matter of hours before and tried desperately to figure out an escape route.

Finally someone noticed and rushed over to my aide. There I sat getting crawfish meat picked out of my eyelashes just as Reese came sauntering back onto the scene very confused on what all the fuss was about. After someone filled him in he laughed and simply said;

"Welcome to the South Sweetheart"