California senators serve 'real crab,' humility in Super Bowl bet payoff

Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) paid off their Super Bowl bet to their Maryland colleagues on Thursday with graciousness, humility and a table full of California delicacies.

The senators arrived at Maryland Sen. Barbara Mikulski's (D) office in a somber mood.

"Are you here for my tears?" Boxer asked the assembled members of the media.

"I don't like this," Feinstein said.

The payoff: "Real crab," as Feinstein called it — Dungeness crab caught off the San Francisco Bay Bridge a few days ago; bottles of Chardonnay from Napa Valley; a variety of cheeses; and sourdough bread.

"We made a bet and we are now honoring it," Feinstein said.

The Baltimore Ravens beat the San Francisco 49ers 34 to 31 on Sunday in Super Bowl XLVII.

"They never gave up. They almost caught up," Boxer said of her team.

She also teased Mikulski for texting her at 6 a.m. on the Monday morning after the game.

She said the message she got was: "It's awfully quiet out there, are you searching for sourdough bread?" She added that "this is what I get as I was drying my tears from the night before."

Mikulski held up one of the crabs and noted: "We look forward to eating them."

 

Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), meanwhile, promised to cancel his request for an investigation into the power outage that stalled play for more than 30 minutes. He had teased Boxer that he was going to release photos of her cutting the power cords.

"I will recall the letter I sent to the committee on investigations on the power outage," he joked.

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