ORONO, Maine — The mystery of the missing mollusk innards is over, as the preserved scallop guts mistakenly placed in the wrong vehicle make their way to a UMaine research facility in South Bristol.
An associate professor with the University of Maine was traveling to Orono on Monday afternoon after a visit to Pemetic Elementary School in Southwest Harbor. She made a pitstop at Somesville One Stop to grab a bite to eat.
The teacher, Abigail Garthwait, didn’t know that while she was inside, a local scallop diver placed the preserved bivalve bits in her backseat, mistaking her vehicle for one belonging to a graduate student he meant to meet there.
He’d been collecting the material for six months as part of research project for the Darling Marine Center, a UMaine research plant in Walpole, a village of South Bristol.
Garthwait got back in her vehicle, a blue Chevrolet Impala belonging to the UMaine Motor Pool, and kept driving. She had to refuel in Orono and it was there, around 5 p.m., that she noticed the two buckets labeled “formaldehyde.”
“I saw those buckets and said, ‘Where the heck did those come from?’” she said Wednesday.
Garthwait assumed the buckets had been in the backseat all along, perhaps left over from the last university employee to use the motor pool car, and that she’d simply not noticed them. Another university employee thought it might be best to throw them away, but Garthwait asked her to hold off.
“I figured it would be better to leave them in the car rather than take them out, because whoever left them there would track them back to the car,” she said.
On Tuesday, the diver’s wife, Michelle Mays, contacted local police departments and spoke with reporters about the missing scallop guts. They represented six months of labor and research lost if they weren’t recovered, she said.
News of the missing scallop guts spread quickly Tuesday on Facebook. Garthwait saw the links early Wednesday morning and started telling friends who had posted them: “It was me. I have the scallop guts.”
The teacher called Mays, and as of Wednesday morning the guts were on their way to Walpole.
Mays was relieved her husband’s work had not been in vain, undone by a simple mistake, and she noted the role of social media in locating the missing research material.
“It’s a happy ending,” she said Wednesday morning. “She [Garthwait] said this is because two of her friends reposted my story on Facebook. So thank you, Facebook.”
Follow Mario Moretto on Twitter at @riocarmine.
Thanks BDN. That’s a gutsy story.
Happy to hear a man and his guts have been reunited.
Yay! I love happy endings
If you want a secret kept secret, don’t ever post it to anyone on Facebook. Word sure gets around fast.
Glad she had the guts to call.
I can’t stomach some of these comments.
I know, they’re getting hard to digest.
Ha!
Look into who Abigail Garthwait is. She is the incarnation of Wonder Woman. I knew her back in the old days when she was the inspiring librarian at Asa Adams School in Orono and then as a professor later on. Who else would’ve protected scallop guts found in a car but someone who seriously values education? You should do a story on her BDN, so we can catch up with what Gail’s been doing these days!!!
Why do so many people leave their cars unlocked ? This is the second story within the past two weeks whereby someone mistook one car for another. In both cases the autos had to be unlocked.I believe in the other case a lady drove off with a truck that had been left running . Go figure !!
It is part of life in Maine. I would rather these mistakes happen instead of locking everything up tight. Have you ever had a nice long chat with someone who dialed the wrong number? Same philosophy.
Ditto!
I agree. Even more disturbing is that it was a vehicle from the UMaine motor pool. Which means a vehicle paid for with taxpayer money! I appreciate how conscientious she was with the scallop guts. Too bad she wasn’t as conscientious in safeguarding a taxpayer paid for vehicle.
Tax payers pay for everything thru the university, really, I thought tuition probably covers many things.
Probably because many of us old timers still remember the old Maine where you didn’t have to worry about someone stealing anything not nailed down………..
I leave my car unlocked fairly often. One of the perks of living in Maine. Most people are honest.
On the news last night they had a story about a thief who took a purse from a cart at Walmart. There’s always someone like that taking advantage of people who believe nobody would do such a thing.
Just because I leave my car unlocked doesn’t mean i’m stupid enough to leave my purse sitting in the seat to be stolen…Locks keep honest people out, dishonest people will bust the window and take what they want, don’t leave valuables in your car locked or unlocked.
It is pretty common in cold weather to see vehicles not only unlocked but running at the various convenience stores around the Island.
Or the post office
I always lock my car and house. to do otherwise is just asking for trouble
Locks keep out the honest. The dishonest will find a way in if they want to.
Another reason why I love living in Maine. Only in Maine would you read a title of scallop guts found in car and say “WooHoo!”
We are providing university employees with cars? Really?
She was visiting a school on behalf of the University. Would you expect UMO employees to use their own cars?
Yes, he probably would. Then, he would complain about
THAT cost.
the University has a pool of cars and vans that can be used for official university business. no employee is provided with their own car. With as many people as the University has traveling on official business it is probably cheaper to use pool vehicles than reimburse people for using their own vehicle.
so?
Would have made a wicked chowdah.
Took guts to admit it.
“Great big gobs of green, greasy, grimy scallop guts …”
I’d bet a whole dollar that UMO employees who use cars from the pool mark that Impala some how.
why didnt she lock the car when she went inside?
Company car who cares.
I assume it is the Umaine car pool policy that a user must lock the car when not in it? Can someone please find this out? Was the car running?
Until they broke this story, I never thought about scallops having internal organs. Just thought they sat on a shell waiting to be plucked out of the ocean. What other secrets of the universe don’t I know?
Aw come on now, 66, even this 67 year old knew they had internal organs-Wurlitzers, no less. jk
Is that a rhetorical question?
I love living in Maine…
Correct grammar….”It was I.”
No, it was she. :-)
Mays you’re damn lucky that the CGIS didn’t get wind of this. I’m sure that their #1 investigator could have (and possibly would have) fabricated an entire case against you over this incident. You’d have to get your Union involved and then just hope this time they ask you if you’d like representation….
If I worked at UMaine I’d request the ‘scallop car’ next time I needed a motor pool vehicle.
Too bad it wasn’t shrimp, then we could say es car go!