Well, it’s the 4th of July weekend – in New England, the height of summer and vacation season. In Arizona, well, just more of the same. Millions of people everywhere are heading out on vacation, so today seems a perfect one to share this little vacation tale:

I got this note yesterday from my friend and co-worker Sharon, who just returned from an unplanned, extended spearfishing weekend on the island of Andros, in the Bahamas. Seems there’s only one company that flies planes in and out of there and it’s a “first come, first serve, unless you got da money, honey” system when the island gets as overcrowded as it did last weekend. Anyways, yesterday was her birthday, and she filed the following report to us at work, which I thought too good not to publish. She writes:

Thank you all for your good wishes! I made it home today finally, although with a considerably lighter wallet after what it took to find a way off this morning.

Now, however, I am missing terribly that warm, azure water and the lazy days, and now of course wish I could have put aside my worries about work and other obligations while stranded, so that I could have enjoyed it even more fully.

However, I really can’t complain — one guy came back without his arm. A shark ate it.

Well that’s one way to come back from vacation lighter than you when you left. I wonder if that fellow can now call himself an “arm”y of one…