crustacian heartache

Vegetarians have many reasons why they abstain from eating animals. For some, it is a matter of religion. For others, it can be justified by a sense of sympathy for the creatures to be slaughtered. In many cases, experiencing an event leads an individual to "go vegetarian," like visiting a meat processing factory or watching Dateline or building a communication device to converse with animals to ask them "how they really feel about being butchered." There is a crustacean that is served in restaurants around the globe that has an awesome power to evoke guilt and agony in the diner. A consumer can watch this life form ascend rapidly from thriving to boiling to dinner in as short as twenty minutes. This creature is none other than the lobster. Eating lobster is enough to convert those of faint heart - or faint stomach, or nursing women and children under 4"8, for that matter - to vegetarianism. The process by which one purchases and consumes lobster is disturbingly different than eating so many other forms of meat. In most cases, the item has already been either prepared, cut, or simply killed. However, when you search for lobster, you see your meal alive and fresh. Without fail, be it in a low-class establishment or a Zagat-exalted eatery or simply a local marketplace, that lobster awaits you with rubber-band-clamped claws in an openly visible tank. In some cases, you can even pick which lobster catches your eye, in a hauntingly Cesarean gladiatorial fashion, saying, "Oh, that one looks feisty," or "Yes, that one looks like it'll put up a good fight." The lobster then is boiled alive, spared the decencies of unconsciousness or other, less painful means of dying. "Painful" is such a term, though, as many critics agree that lobsters are exempt from feeling pain. Either way, it's slightly unsettling to eat a being that was alive and well a mere twenty minutes ago. That feeling of guilt is escalated by some fine restaurants' presentation of the good crustacean. In many cases, the tail is split and the claws are detached. In some select cases, however, the torso is delicately placed in a cup, propping the head upwards and towards the diner. This is the most disconcerting presentation of all, for throughout the meal, with each morsel of lobster meat the buyer places into his or her mouth, the consumption is met with the lobster's cold, dead gaze, blankly and eternally staring and inescapably in the corner of one's eyes. With those unblinking beady pupils, the lobster must surely watch and condemn its consumer from beyond the grave. Those fuzzy, scrawny little forelegs, either reaching up woefully or in a position of bedside prayer. Such an innocent creature, depicted as barbaric and violent solely as a result of acting in self-defense. Should such a being have to endure such sorrow and strife? One cannot help but feel a wave of regret and guilt upon being presented what only moments prior was a fine and fantastic organism, regardless of whether or not it was sentient. It would most likely give this poor crustacean great pleasure to know that it inflicted so much pain upon the diner even after its passing. Not only does it deal the aforementioned emotional grief, but it can be a physical menace as well. Due to its uncompromisingly hard shell that always tends to break in knifelike shards that easily tear into one's skin, even a dead lobster can still put up a hell of a fight. To add insult to injury, those who order lobster are required to don a demeaning plastic bib, possibly the most tortuous element of the lobster meal. This is just salt in the open wound, resulting in a pain so great that many declare to never eat lobster again. It is no wonder that so many people only rarely eat lobster, if at all. Surely it is to allow the sands of time to expunge the sorrowful memories of the lobster experience.
elp had a massive nosebleed about halfway through this column. Seriously, it was like those Japanese cartoons where blood starts spraying violently everywhere in this magnificent geyser. It was so intense
BY Elp,2HC columnist