Egon is still learning the ways of the US. One thing about the US is that portions (among other things) tend to be a lot bigger than in Europe. Often the portions are actually larger than what he wants, and he has to leave food on his plate. This recently came to a climax a truck stop in New Jersey when Egon ordered a large coffee and received a cup the size of a horse feed bucket full of boiling hot acidic percolator brew. He’s learning not to say “large.”

Red Octopus at the Baltimore Aquarium

Maryland blue crabs are indisputably the best crabs on the planet. I love crabs in general but I never see blue crabs anywhere but Maryland and Delaware (in reality they’re mostly green and turn bright red when cooked). As a kid I was taught to catch them by tying a chicken neck to a length of twine, lowering it into the water and tying the other end to a pier. After a while you could pull the twine slowly upwards and if there was crab on the chicken neck you could scoop it up in a net. The trick was to pull slowly so you didn’t frighten off the feeding crab. If you pulled the crab up too close to the surface, it would bail, and if you tried to scoop while the crab was still too deep, the net would move too slowly and the crab would escape.

Baltimore sits at the top of the Chesapeake and is a great place for crabs. So after spending several hours admiring fish and sharks in the excellent Baltimore aquarium, we found a place outside on the harbor with picnic-style tables and benches outfitted with rolls of paper towels. I ordered twelve large crabs and two beers and a look of terror seized Egon’s face for a moment – are you sure we want “large”? But the large crabs are easier to get meat out of, so I reassured him that in this case, it was the right choice.

A normal serving of large crabs

Eating crabs takes a lot of patience. The delicious meat is hidden in myriad nooks and crannies in the crab’s armor, and as you break up the crab the shell shreds in unpredictable ways. It takes a long time to eat a meal of crabs, but it’s very social because everybody at the table is going through the same ordeal.

We finished at about three thirty, which was perfect because the hotel had made me promise I would clear the car out of the lot by four. We went back to the car and I discovered I didn’t have the keys. Absolutely everything we owned was locked in the trunk. My stomach sank into my feet. We had a dinner date in DC with my brother Ian and his girlfriend Katie, who were leaving for a European tour the next day.

It seemed vanishingly unlikely that we could get a new key for the car before the next day by which time it would be too late to see Ian. This was a serious disaster. I started running frantically from place to place looking for the keys. Egon on the other hand doesn’t think much of running around. He has a purposeful but relaxed stride even when the shit is hitting the fan. He convinced me that we should look for the keys together, and therefore no running would be involved. We retraced our steps through every street we had been and scoured the wharf area. We engaged the entire staff at the crab restaurant to pick through floor sweepings and trashcans full of wadded up paper tablecloths. We filled out lost property forms at the Aquarium.

At one point, we heard a horn honking frantically. I looked up and saw the rock fan from the hotel driving past, excitedly waving at us, thrilled to spot the rock stars again. I couldn’t even muster the fake smile of an impostor, so depressed was I at our predicament, all due to my own carelessness.

Finally, in desperation we turned to the police. Ordinarily, I follow Jackie Levin’s dictum that there is no situation so horrible and hopeless that a policeman can’t make it worse, but we had exhausted all other options that had any chance of getting us to DC in time for dinner with Ian.

Two blocks from the wharf, at the corner of Washington and Gay, there is a big concrete police station. The entrance area is small and unglamorous. A felt sign with movable type by the elevator shows a directory of offices and departments. To the right is a utilitarian but cluttered desk staffed by two serious looking police employees and a computer, looking like characters from the Wire. I explained that I was looking for a set of car keys. The woman asked me to provide a fuller description, which I did, and voilà, she had the keys! Some honest citizen had found them and handed them over to a patrolling officer, who had efficiently already brought them here. We were saved! Our spirits soared. The police were professional and friendly and solution-oriented. The woman asked for photo ID before she would hand them over, and then both officers marveled over my Norwegian driver’s license, which doesn’t expire until I turn 100 years old (US driver’s licenses expire and have to be renewed every few years). The man asked, oh, so you have to stop driving then? Whereupon Egon replied, no, you just need to have a new picture taken.

We left feeling elated and really grateful to all the people who had sympathetically helped us look for the keys – especially the staff at Phillip’s and the Baltimore police, and the anonymous pedestrian who turned in the keys. Charm City lived up to its name.