The old "Bar Crab" trick......

Every now and then, to amuse the bar patrons, you have to pull on old trick out of your bag. Last night I used the “bar crab.” I hadn’t given this a thought in about 20 years.

What you do, is, take a bevnap, open it out, then twist the corners, make each twist about an inch and half long, thus creating a dome in the center of the bevnap. Then you get a lime, set it on the bar and put the domed bevnap over it. Now give it a little push so it rolls down the bar. Since a lime is not perfectly round, it rolls funny…not in a perfectly straight….it takes a few little turns here and there….and it looks like a little critter moving down the bar.

Of course, now everyone wants a turn. So they push it up and down the bar to each other….every now and then it takes a turn in a direction no one planned on, and falls off the bar. When this would happen, I started hearing “Crab overboard!” So I’d pick it up and put it back on the bar, and the merriment would continue. Much the same way you would throw a beach ball back in the pool when the kids are swimming.

One latecomer stared at it in amazement, and asked “How’d you do that?!?” “It’s magic.” (standard answer)

Then the poor little bar crab would sit , lonely and forlorn, forgotten about, for all of ten minutes, then someone would start playing with it again. I was thinking of making another one, so they could have races, but I don’t know how many times I could listen to “Crab overboard” before I picked it up and threw it out.

I may have created a (short-lived) monster. Next time anyone from this group comes in, they’re gonna want to show the bar crab to someone else…just like a kid wants to show off a new toy. Then I’ll be hearing, “Let’s make one with a lemon! OH! Let’s try an orange!”

I sent a text to the bartender who is working tonight, and told her if they ask for a lime, to humor them.