I shouldn’t tell you how many hours I spent hunting for a baby turtle sandbox for my grandson.  Two months before his birthday I ran the whole sandbox idea past his mom and dad, who said okay, and I thought it would be easy to pick one up when we arrived in Texas.

I was wrong.  See this cute creature?  He’s practically extinct.

Walm**t was the only store that carried it, but they really didn’t.  I went to several of them, even one 35 miles from Austin at 10:30 PM.  This is what grandmothers do.  I was told the sandboxes were locked up in a trailer behind the store and maybe, probably, if I came back tomorrow, someone could maybe, probably, find the key.

At another W*****t, the salesclerk led me to the aquarium aisle.  At yet another, I was taken to the garden department (now filled with artificial Christmas trees) and told the turtle sandbox was a swimming pool and “seasonal”.

I heard the word “seasonal” a lot, despite the fact that in Texas (10 year drought, record number of 100+ degree days last summer) is finally “cool” enough (in the 80’s), for children to actually be outside in sandboxes without collapsing of heat stroke.

I do love Texans–they are a polite, cheerful, friendly group of people and I love their music and dance halls and vintage fashion sense—but they are definitely strange about cool weather.   Halloween morning it was below 70 (picture an early August morning in the Bitterroots).  I was on the road at 8 AM for an outing with my daughter-in-law and grandson and it was a gorgeous day.  The Austinites strolling the sidewalks wore heavy coats, scarves, ski caps and thick boots.  I saw one guy wearing gloves.

Seasonal clothing.  Yep.

Back to the Little Tykes Baby Turtle Sandbox search…I was determined, no matter what the online websites said, to find a sandbox (the baby turtle was the right size and highly rated for safety) so I could play with my grandson.  I haven’t been able to take him to the beach in RI (yet!) so I would bring sand to him.  None of the men in my family said a discouraging word about this quest.  Come to think about it, they all became very quiet whenever my frustration with the elusive Baby Turtle Sandbox flared up.

I finally found one in a thrift store.  Banjo Man and Steel Guitar Man (aka brother-in-law GL) scrubbed it clean and filled it with new play sand.  We delivered it to its new home on my grandson’s deck.

The little guy was thrilled.  His fat little toes curled into the sand and, once he got over the shock of the new feeling, he screeched with joy and tried to stand on his head and couldn’t stop laughing.  Neither could I.

Maybe we should all screech and laugh and stick our rears in the air when we discover something new and wonderful, like sand.

Might make an interesting finale to next year’s band gigs.

Or maybe not.