Under the C

I was taking a shortcut Tuesday afternoon looking for Triscuits in my grocer's. I would assume big stores have aisles reserved just for specific products, in my case, Cheerios, Cheez-Its and seedless grapes, but then I remember that I live in a small town and we can't always have all the amenities we want. Some settling and sharing of contents may occur in shipment and there's not a whole lot any of us can do about it.

By taking the shortcut I ended confronting the lobsters in the seafood department. I guess I should tell you that the Gordon Fisherman needn't brave the dark and rolling sea for me-I eat fish sticks and just about nothing else. And if I were to be honest what I actually eat are tightly compacted bread crumbs that may or may not have fish in/near/close to them. One of the 'great things' people I worked with always told me as I was preparing to relocate to The Land of Round Doorknobs was how I could now have have all the seafood I liked. I never had the heart to tell them I had all the seafood I liked by the time I was five.

Living in Southeastern Connecticut where the farther north you head up the coast until you're Down East, the wider the A gets in lobstah, I cannot eat them and have trouble even looking at 'em. I'm a card-carrying carnivore-pork, chicken, lamb, beef, have napkin will travel. Fish, shellfish, crustaceans (nattily-attired and otherwise) not so much. If you and I were to be marooned on a desert island, you should kill me immediately, since I can tell you right now, I'd eat you right after you'd fattened yourself up on all the fish you'd caught. Doubt me? Doze at your peril.

Staring at the lobsters in the glass tank (why do they have to be kept like that? This is somehow more humane than a box with metal sides? ) I was almost going to type forlorn looking but I have no idea what part of the lobster is the face, though I think I know what the mouth is (but NOT why it looks like they're talking all the time) and I've no clue what a forlorn one would look like in comparison to a joyous one. I suspect the easiest way to tell them apart is a joyous one probably doesn't have giant rubber bands around the pincers (claws?) because it's on the floor of the ocean instead of in a glass tank in a super market. Jack Hannah on line two for me with a TV series pitch for TDC's Shark Week. Not. 

I wanted to ask the guy behind the counter if the store feeds the lobsters before people buy them (and if so, what? Soylent Green?) but they were selling so quickly the question was moot. It's strange watching them stacked atop one another, not really grasping the deal with the rubber band and still trying to get at each other in such a confined space. If they're capable of thought, are they sitting there thinking 'this the crappiest day of my life!' Until the hand (and arm) of Fate surprises them and they are momentarily borne aloft and suddenly learn there are worse things in life than being in a glass tank. 

I ducked into the next aisle, Prepared Food, when I flashed on the notion that for all other carnivorous predators on this planet we are unprepared food. Yes, Virginia, there is a free lunch. We're eating it now. Praise the Lord and pass the cocktail sauce.
-bill kenny