correcting the record on lobsters
1.
unfortunately, sometimes i find myself thinking
about that episode of friends
wherein a “fun fact” about lobsters is used as proof
that ross and rachel (gross)
are soul mates,
but did you know that shit isn’t even true?
lobsters do not mate for life.
it’s fucking crustacean love propaganda.
that line, delivered by lisa kudrow
is forever cemented in my brain.
i don’t even like that show.
2.
another scene from television, another myth:
on the l word, max says that to avoid being cooked to death
male lobsters will ladder up each other’s backs in the pot to escape
while female lobsters thrash around and claw at one another
until they die.
this, of course, is also untrue.
i picture a third option,
swimming in that salty death jacuzzi:
two lobsters, each stubbornly insisting on
being the bottom rung of the escape route
while the temperature rises.
3.
at dinner last month, a friend told me
lobsters are technically immortal;
that is, they don’t die simply from aging,
only when killed by a predator.
this myth has the most merit,
though it’s also a misconception.
while time itself is not their downfall, they grow
their whole lives, which creates the need to molt.
as you might imagine, this process takes a lot of energy.
“the energy costs are what kills,”
writes a microbiologist on twitter.
this, i understand.
this, maybe i understand too much.
4.
i was thinking about another lobster fact
or i guess maybe it’s more of a recipe.
some submerge them in water before it’s boiling
so i googled “lobsters cook slowly”
and found this, on the first page of results:
“the secret to cooking lobsters
is not to murder them.
give them a nice, slow
respectable way out.
don’t put them in boiling water
and don’t drown them in too much water.”
i wonder what the line is
between a slow burn
and being cooked alive —