All posts by Devra

I had watched the soccer matches religiously up until the semi- finals, but then all hell broke loose when I awoke one morning last week with my throat on fire. Soon after my whole head clogged up and all I wanted to do was sleep.  I went into a brief Nyquil-induced hibernation. On Sunday I finally emerged and felt human enough to get in the car with my husband and drive our older son up to basketball camp.  Our younger son stayed with his friends so he wouldn’t annoy his older brother for three solid hours in an enclosed space could watch the final World Cup match between Spain and Germany.

As we hit the highway, I checked the crackberry for the World Cup scores:

Me: Hey, Spain won the World Cup. Beat Germany, One-Zip.

Husband: So. The Octopus was right.

Me: Is that someone you work with?

Husband: Who?

Me: The Octopus.

Husband: No. The Octopus is an actual octopus.  He’s in an aquarium in Germany.  His name is Paul and he has predicted the winners for the World Cup all during the competition.  The kids and I watched him on ESPN last well.

To the outside observer our conversation may seem somewhat disjointed, but allow me to explain. My husband is in the military and if you’ve ever seen Top Gun, then you know about nicknames like “Iceman,” “Goose” and “Maverick.”  My husband spent years working in Special Operations, so I had grown accustomed to answering our phone at all hours of the night to disembodied voices identifying themselves as  “Mack,” “Rubber,” “The Mayor,” or even “Beavis.”  Since my husband once worked with a guy he called  “Shark” whose real name was Eric , it was perfectly plausible The Octopus could in fact be a colleague of his at the Pentagon.  But in this case, The Octopus wasn’t some secret spy code for “Steve,” this octopus was the real deal.

Not sure how I missed Paul the soothsayer of the sea, but he’s not missed a predicted winner in 8 matches of World Cup soccer. What motivates the mollusk? Food. Two boxes are lowered into Paul’s tank, each team is represented with a flag affixed to each box which  contains a mussel. Paul then makes his way over to the two boxes, and the winner is determined after Paul slithers into one of the two boxes, and grabs a bivalve.

Behold. Paul!

The Oberhausen Sea Life  Center in Germany has announced Paul is retiring, however he will not fade from view. The Sea Life Center hopes to give Paul the opportunity to teach younger octopods his special skill.  But I’ll tell you what. If the younger eight armed whippersnappers don’t catch on to Paul’s methodology.  I’ll volunteer to be Paul’s apprentice. I am motivated by food, I absolutely love mussels and  I’ve never been to Germany.

Four years is enough time for me to fund-raise for the trip and get my diver certification. Right?

[source]