A Family Tradition

Lately, Mack and I have been going to a little diner up the road from our house called Cafe '50s. It's got a jukebox and records on the walls and shakes with whipped cream on top. It also has an egg scramble called the La Bamba for $5.95 which can be credited with my recent 5-pound weight gain.

Across the street from '50s is a little pet shop, so after we eat, we've been stopping in to look at the corn snakes and pistol shrimp and snapping turtles and little baby bunnies. During our first pass through it was a pretty typical pet shop, but on our most recent visit, we started to notice its creepy underbelly.

Like this thing.
Know what it is?

Would it surprise you to know it's a freakin' shark egg? Because it blew my mind.

Here I'd gone 30 years thinking sharks were mammals, believing that they shot out baby sharks like killer whales shoot out baby killer whales. But no, they're egg layers. Just like a bunch of chickens.

As if that wasn't enough to make me stand there slack jawed in the middle of the pet shop, then I looked more closely and holy crap. There was the egg yolk, an umbilical cord and a little shark swimming around in that sack acting all frustrated that it couldn't get out.