If you see an octopus inner tube

sitting on the post of a cheap beach shop--50% off everything! No gimmicks!--you have only one choice: Buy it.

So we did.

This is one big octopus, so inflating it was going to be a challenge. No problem: the beach shop has a compressor for just this purpose. So, ten minutes of compressor time later, all courtesy of a helpful young guy, and voila! We have an inflated octopus inner tube.

Inflated octopus inner tube, meet Prius. Prius, meet inflated octopus inner tube.

New problem: With four of us in the Prius, we couldn't put its back seats down, so we had to stow the octopus in the small rear cargo area--where it would not fit.

Problem solved: We drove all the way home with the rear hatch of the Prius sticking straight up into the air and Kyle and Gina holding tentacles from their back-seat positions.

As you can see in this first photo, we had a small tentacle overhang issue, but the Prius is a narrow little car, so we didn't worry too much about this particular problem. Only the drivers behind us suffered, and then only from excessive laughter.



The pedestrians to our right, however, had to deal with this view, which led to more than a few scratched heads and "WTF?" exclamations as we drove past.










Lest you think I'm exaggerating the size of this inflatable octopus, here's another pair of photos to give you a different sense of scale, this time courtesy of Kyle. This head-on view is nice, but the next one is the happy snap we all came to love.















You must admit that in this shot Kyle looks every bit the action star--intrepid, focused, and ready for any adventure that involves a pool.

We wanted him to change his Facebook status to

Kyle is...ready to ride the octopus!

but we're not sure if he did. We can but hope.