The grocery store was having a huge sale on lobster. I love lobster, but like so many things in life I prefer to have it already … indistinguishable as a life form. Yes, I’m one of those people who’s squeamish about killing things.
Harsher, perhaps more honest, people would call me a hypocrite since I will eat living things but opt for the emotional distance that comes from having it wrapped in cling wrap and Styrofoam with a nicely typed label.
The reality is that we live our life around here with out ever having to cut the head off anything and then have it running around like… well, you know. And I just don’t like being the hand of fate that reaches down and says, “That one is dinner! Bwaaa ha ha ha!”
Still, I was tempted. After all, a sale is a sale. I was this close to picking up a lobster. I walked over to the lobsters’ wading pool, where there were little cartoon shellfish decorating it in a sort of odd ironic twist. The lobsters were crawling around enthusiastically, their little rubber band claws up in the air as if they were asking to be selected for dinner with the Prosapios.
Then I thought of Caspian.
Caspian is a snail. I imagine I’m not the first mom to be horrified to find a snail crawling on my daughters lunch only to learn that it is not only an invited guest, but has already been named and has appropriated a large plastic Tupperware container as his castle.
So there was snail, aka Caspian, crawling along the plate, his slimy antennae moving in and out of his head and I thought, this is getting out of control. We already have a reptile, rodents, a feline, canines… and now something without a spine. What’s next?
It would be Larry the lobster if I carried one of those things home. There’s not a chance I’d get him in a pot. Then I’d lose a bathtub, not to mention probably a tip of a toe if he ever escaped.
Wisely, for once, I waved goodbye to the pool of lobsters. Hopefully a few will be back in the tank where we can visit them like animals in a sort of culinary zoo.
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