Hi. My name is Able. I was once a magnificent red abalone. Now I’m just a junk bowl on the desk of the dipshit who normally writes this column. I contain some presumably reusable toothpicks, an expired condom, probably a raisin and a smelly glass pipe.
And my partner here is a red abalone shell named Lonnie. She’s full of cigarette butts, so her voice is muffled. But she said, “Hi, y’all. Is Dipshit home?”
No Lonnie, Dipshit’s out doing something shady. Anyway, scientists call us Haliotis rufescens, and we are the largest of the dozens of the world’s abalone species. My shell is 9 inches long and I’m sure I’d have eventually become a “trophy” 10-incher if sea urchins and marine heatwaves hadn’t decimated my yummy kelp.
So, after 20 years of clinging to my rock with possibly the strongest foot of all snails, I withered until the surf knocked me loose and scavengers ate my body. But we’re not here to talk about complex ecological disasters. See the Dec. 18, 2025, North Coast Journal (“An Absence of Abalone”) for that discussion.
Dipshit got lucky when he found me because many abalone shells break up on the rocky beaches adjacent to our habitat. But, broken abalone shell is still pretty with its colorful iridescent nacre, or “mother-of-pearl.” Pieces of abalone shell have been used as jewelry all over the world for thousands of years. The nacre is made of layers of microscopic calcium carbonate plates held together by layers of a blackish protein. This produces a material that is so strong and lightweight that humans mimic it in high-tech materials.
Lonnie arrived back when abalone hunting was still allowed. Dipshit scraped her from her rock. Then he eviscerated her alive, pounded her, sliced her thinly and flash-fried her in seasoned breadcrumbs. Lonnie said, “Dipshit can kiss my ass.”
Good one, Lonnie! As snails, our anuses are characteristically right next to our heads, so Dipshit would have to gaze into Lonnie’s rudimentary eyes as he kissed her ass. Of course, Lonnie no longer has an anus, but the forward-most of the holes on her shell are where her anus used to discharge. We also use the row of holes to breathe and release sperm or eggs. Red abalones normally maintain three or four open holes, and we close off older unneeded holes as we grow new ones.
If you examine an older abalone shell, you may also see a bunch of tiny holes. These are created by a parasitic yellow sponge that bores galleries into our shells. We can repair some of the damage by depositing additional calcium carbonate, but it can eventually weaken the shell enough to kill us. Lonnie said, “I heard Dipshit’s mom call him a parasitic sponge.”
Heh, heh. That’s awesome, Lonnie. If you compare our two shells, you’ll see that I am flatter than Lonnie. People believe that the shape of an abalone’s shell is influenced by its habitat. For example, Lonnie settled as a larva in a relatively protected cove, so she lived where she might grow into a deeper bowl shape. But I grew up on the surf-swept open coast. For protection, I lived in a narrow crevice between boulders where a higher profile would be a disadvantage. Lonnie said, “I’d like to stuff Dipshit into a narrow crevice.” Hush, Lonnie! He’s home ….
OK, he left again. And he dropped several small baggies of white powder, a roll of $100 bills and a high-capacity handgun magazine into me. Lonnie said, “For the love of God, somebody please call the cops on Dipshit before it’s too late.”
Biologist Mike Kelly (he/him) is also the author of the book Tigerfish: Traditional and Sport Fishing on the Niger River, Mali, West Africa. It’s available at Amazon or everywhere e-books are sold.
This article appears in The Foilies 2026.