DON'T EAT THE SMART LOBSTERS, PLEASE

A few months ago I went on a rant about dumb lobsters. At the supermarket, I'd seen some twenty lobsters crammed into the deli tank, all eyes and feelers and large claws, scrabbling one over the other in a futile attempt to escape a fate that was yet unclear to them.


At the time I stared at them and realized that these poor fellows were just following the laws of Darwin, which basically state that to the fittest goes survival, and thus a stronger species is developed as time goes on.


In short, these guys, like the hapless unknown actor in the scifi movies, were going to be eaten.

However two days ago I was again at that market and encountered some really large lobster specimens, some of a particular type that boast a blue carapace that takes time to show. These were big boys and girls, easily ten pounders or more apiece, and there were way less of them crammed into that tank than a couple of months back when the juniors were there.


Now back then I advocated that we eat the stupid lobsters, reasoning that since they were relatively young and had been easily caught, that somewhere out there the smarter, larger lobsters were avoiding the traps and thus improving the entire breed. 


But apparently some fishermen are going after the smarter animals, and two days ago it was all I could to keep myself from talking to the manager in hopes of getting him to release these magnificent creatures back into the wild. They really were big -- easily a foot and a half from tail to claw, and as thick around as any deli style salami. These fellas had been around a whole lot for crying out loud to reach their current state, and the notion that someone was just going to dump them in boiling water and then eat them seemed an ignonimious
way for these old timers to check out.


So now I'm going to repeat my thought again -- eat the stupid lobsters, the small dumb ones, and boycott eating the ones that took a long time to end up in that tank. 


Amen, and well, don't pass the melted butter.