Between one and three days following the highest spring tide, the grunion lays its eggs in the sand at the high-tide mark on Southern Californian beaches.
The grunion does this at night.
Because it does this at night, no one has ever really seen a grunion, so this is all conjecture.
Nevertheless, there the grunion eggs are in the morning, two to three inches below the surface of the sand. So somebody must put them there, why not a grunion?
It’s the simplest explanation for the phenomenon.
Sometimes the grunion comes home at the end of a hard day at the end of a hard week to find that a pipe is leaking in the cellar, and its father-in-law is down there calmly mopping stuff up while its wife and mother-in-law are in the kitchen drinking wine and getting upset about the plumbing emergency.
For grunions, if no one gets upset, it’s only half the party.
Grunion plumbing always springs a leak on the weekend, when plumbers charge between time and a half and double time.
Grunions like snow, a lot, but it’s March already. Enough is enough.
Grunions live for the weekend, although a grunion weekend lasts only like about a few hours.
The average length of a grunion is somewhere between five and six inches.
1. The fish news leaves me feeling both sad and amused. I confess to a guilty pleasure in the fish news. Like I should not enjoy it because it is sad and painful, but at the same time…
2. My renter emailed me yesterday to tell me of a plumbing “emergency” at my house. Am I a grunion?
3. It is snowing in the Ennstal this morning. But the snow has gone very ugly in the last week or so, so the new snow is a cosmetic improvement.
1. The fish news leaves me feeling both sad and amused. I confess to a guilty pleasure in the fish news. Like I should not enjoy it because it is sad and painful, but at the same time…
2. My renter emailed me yesterday to tell me of a plumbing “emergency” at my house. Am I a grunion?
3. It is snowing in the Ennstal this morning. But the snow has gone very ugly in the last week or so, so the new snow is a cosmetic improvement.
These fish facts are quite good. Have you considered submitting them to McSweeney’s?
Nothing is scarier than a grunion with a plumber’s wrench…
And going to the beach to watch the grunnion run after a movie date can often end up with other types of activity.
Ten thousand hurrahs for this tangent into ichthyology, although if it were me I’d keep it to once a week, just to make a good thing last.
And what about the
It’s Lent. Nothing but fish all month long.