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Creative Nonfiction Portrait Reflection  3 min Mature Audience

How to Eat Crabs with Your Mother-in-Law

Kaitlin Ba.

Kaitlin Ba.

Kaitlin Barker Davis’ essays on travel and motherhood have appeared in Nowhere Magazine, Narratively, CNF Sunday Short Reads, The Best Women’s Travel Writing and elsewhere. Read more of her writing at kaitlinbarkerdavis.com. "How to Eat Crabs with Your Mother-in-Law" was originally published in Creative Nonfiction magazine's Sunday Short Reads series. It is now a part of Short Édition's series, The Current.

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Originally published in Creative Nonfiction magazine's Sunday Short Reads series
1)At exactly 5:50 p.m., your mother-in-law will anxiously announce, "Someone needs to go get the crabs right now!" When you first met her, shortly after meeting her son, you called her by her first name, an accidental faux pas for which you reluctantly apologized. These things happen when you drop a West Coaster onto the Eastern Shore of Maryland. You recovered, achieving first-name basis soon after. Accompany your husband to pick up the half-bushel of steamed crabs from One Fish Two Fish, the local seafood shop. Note the sign scrawled in red marker behind the cashier: Not responsible for orde

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