Message in a Bottle

Wouldn’t it be so cool to find a message in a bottle sometime?

What if you just happened to be on vacation, say in The Bahamas? You’re laying on the beach. It’s a beautifully sunny 80 degrees. You look up from your Nook to make sure your daughter is within a few feet of your own feet. Ah, there she is, but what? What’s that? There’s something shiny glistening in the water. No, it’s not the gorgeous aqua color of the shallow water reflecting off the sand. It looks like something is floating in the water. Your daughter sees it and is instantly intrigued. You weren’t really interested in your book anyway, so you get up and walk over to where she meets the found object. She picks it up and you’re shocked to see that it’s a real message in a real bottle. They do exist!

Your daughter looks up at you with surprise in her eyes. The next thing you know, your husband is right next to you. He looks awfully relaxed after his massage in the resort’s spa. It looks like he’s going to fall asleep standing next to you. But then he looks at the bottle in your daughter’s hands and shakes the cobwebs from his head. He asks you what it is, and you reply that it looks like a message in a bottle. You take your daughter’s free hand and walk back to the towels. All three of you are quiet.

Your husband asks to see the bottle. Your daughter turns the bottle over and over in her hands before giving it to her daddy. After all, she’s the one who found the bottle. It must be inspected super carefully. Your husband then performs his own routine inspection. The bottle is a greenish color, and it’s not very big–maybe 10-12 inches in height. You always thought something like this would be found in a clear bottle with a cork. This isn’t the movies though. There’s no cork in this bottle. It looks like there’s a lightning stopper on this bottle. You know, one of those stoppers with the wire ring around the top that holds the stopper and seal in place. The wire looks the worse for wear. You’re not sure if you’ll be able to even open it. You look at your husband turning it over in his hands. It seems like he’s thinking the same thing. You ask if he can open it. He’s not sure. But do you open it? What if the message was never meant to be seen? What if this message in a bottle was meant to be found by someone else? Then your daughter asks what could the message possibly say?! What if it’s from someone stranded on a desert island?! You ask your family if they each think it should be opened. Your daughter gives you that look that says, “Seriously, mommy?!” Your husband gives you that look that says, “I’m planning to open it one way or another.” Even if you were to say no, majority rules.

It only takes your big, strong, manly husband half a minute to untangle the wire and let loose the stopper. Who knows how long this little bottle has traveled and how many oceans it has seen! The suspense is killing your daughter! She’s jumping up and down on the towels kicking sand on to everyone while eagerly waiting for that message! It’s not easy to get it out though. It’s maybe only half the size of the bottle so it takes a bit of finesse and finagling to move it down (since you’ve turned the bottle upside down to pound on the bottom of it like it were a ketchup bottle) to the opening. You allow your daughter to do the honors. With nimble fingers she slowly pulls the message from its hiding place and carefully rolls it out across her palm, but she’s turning away from you and your husband and making it hard to see the message at all. You can tell that she’s deliberately reading each word on the message in 1-second increments. She turns around and hands you the note with a scowl on her face.

“Thank you for finding me. I was placed into the Hudson River on June 30, 2009.”

What would your message say?
1.Message in a bottle (mombox.wordpress.com)
2. Daily Prompt: SOS (itsdd2.wordpress.com)
3. If You’re Reading This… (myauthoritis.wordpress.com)
4. Message in a bottle. (thewordtrance.wordpress.com)
5. Message in a bottle (mindfuldigressions.com)
6. SOS – Did You Get The Message? (www.deliberatingdave.com)
7. Daily prompt: SOS (dragoneystory.wordpress.com)
8. Daily Prompt: Being Mythical! (allthingscuteandbeautiful.wordpress.com)
9. A message from the universe. (srollinson7.wordpress.com)
10. The bottle (lifeisgreat0.wordpress.com)
11. Fate (bzzybz.wordpress.com)
12. DAILY PROMPT: SOS (basicallybeyondbasic.com)
13. TAKE A MOMENT TO ENVY ME (artmoscow.wordpress.com)
14. (Daily Prompt: SOS) Message in A Bottle (stepitupstephen.wordpress.com)