Sometimes I feel like such an airhead. A good natured, well meaning air head, but nonetheless, an airhead. Let me tell you about this lobster.
One day I offered to take Levi with me to the grocery store. It was the week between Christmas and New Years. As we do, Matt and I made up a list (if you were to see the conveyor belt at the checkout, you’d probably think 2 different families lived under one roof . . . there’s morning star burgers on the belt right next to say ribs or drumsticks). Anyway, Matt wrote “lobster” on the list. I didn’t think about it. I figured I’d just set my vegetarianism aside, as I normally do when grocery shopping, and purchase a lobster for my husband.
I didnt’ realize what that involved.
So, Levi and I made our way to Giant. Up and down the aisles we went, adding this or that to our cart, me chatting away because I can’t ever shut up. Well, just as I was about done, I saw that I’d forgotten the lobster. The seafood department is in the back of the store with a huge tank full of lobsters. I know this because Annabelle and I will stop over and just watch the lobsters, swimming around. It’s sort of like a free trip to a mini aquarium (we do this at Nordstrom’s kids department too. A very nice way to spend a rainy morning). Anyway, I walked up to the counter and said to the clerk, “I’d like to order a lobster.” He explained that I could either bring the lobster home “alive” or have him steam the lobster for me. This meant I had a choice: kill the lobster at the store or bring the lobster home and have my husband kill the lobster in a pot in our kitchen. I chose the former. The clerk told me it’d take about 10 minutes and recommended I finish whatever shopping I had left.
Well, I had done the rest of the shopping so I had 10 minutes to putz around the store and think about the lobster and how I had ordered his or her death (do lobsters’ have sex?). Levi and I circled the aisles again and I tried to think about what bad karma I was generating for myself. The typewriter lady was having a field day. Until I walked down the pet food aisle. There I discovered the bird feeders. I thought to myself, “Ah, if I feed the birds (it is winter after all), maybe this will off set the murder of the lobster that I am now an accessory to.”
At the checkout, I placed my steamed, dead lobster on the conveyor belt next to the birdfeeder and seed. I felt a tiny bit better about what I’d done.
Until I returned home. I told my husband the story of how I’d ordered the death of his lobster and that I didn’t think I could ever do this again. He looked at me and said, “I just wanted a lobster tail. They didn’t have one?” Duh. ”So, you mean, you didn’t want a whole lobster?”
I realize that in the end, either way I was going to bring home lobster for my husband to eat . . . but can you see why I felt like such a moron and murderer all at the same time?
Later that day I hung my birdfeeder. Oh Karma, please have mercy on me. I am such an airhead.
{ 9 comments }
Jessica, As a vegetarian, I really struggle with buying any kind of meat for my omnivore family members. You wouldn’t believe how often I forget to buy the meat when I’m shopping. Not even on purpose! I think Karma will be kind to you. Think of your generous and loving heart; certainly that attracts Good Karma!
Oh my goodness, this is just like how I think.
But you are not a moron. He should have said lobster tail! Furthermore asking a vegetarian to order a lobster is like asking a quadriplegic astrophysicist to perform a ballet.
Sounds to me you are an awesome wife.
Aisling, wow, so you understand living with an omnivore. I try not to forget to purchase my hubby’s meat because he loves to cook and well, I am so lacking in that area.
Prasanna, :-) Thank you for calling me an “awesome wife,” I’ll have to pass the praise along to my hubby. Hopefully, he’ll agree. And btw, I love your analogy.
i personally believe you are racking up more bad karma for being so hard on yourself about the whole thing than for telling the grocer to steam the lobster.
but, take that with a grain of salt. i am after all a meat eating animal communicator. from my research i feel comfortable eating meat that was raised and slaughtered humanely so i am picky about my sources but i do eat meat.
i will second your wifely awesomeness too. i have no idea how to buy a lobster or a lobster tail!
I don’t think that the lobster is going to generate bad karma for you. Had you bought a tail, it would have the same effect on SOME lobster SOMEWHERE. I know it’s more upsetting to feel directly responsible, but it’s really the same thing. As your husband eats the meat, I say he takes the blame. And I say that as a meat-eater, myself.
(And I would have not idea how to buy a lobster, either. My experiences with them are also limited to my kid’s enjoyment of them.)
Yup, there are separate male and female lobsters. Females in some states (like Maine) are illegal to take because they contribute to the breeding population. So I’d guess it was a him, but still could have been a her. If it had pink eggs inside the tail, it was a female. That’s your biology lesson for today :)
And a lobster would still have to die whether or not it was just a tail. Would you kill a spider? There’s not much difference between a lobster and a spider, if that makes you feel better.
AND… you can feel happy that you probably supported a family business. We have friends in Maine who are lobser fishermen, and most of them are coops of individual families. I think that’s good karma :)
I’m thinking this piece was a bit of a failure. I honestly intended (as much as I love animals and personally choose not to eat them) for my writing to be more tongue in cheek than anything else. I suppose it came across far more serious than I’d wanted it to. My husband found it humorous, but then again, he gets my sense of humor. I’ll have to work on channeling that into my writing in a broader, more skilled way.
robin, thank you, :-) I sure hope I’m generating good karma.
Amber, I’m pretty much in agreement. I realize that whether or not I bring home a part of the lobster or the entire animal, I’m supporting my husband’s omnivorous diet. I just felt awful and yet, saw the humor, in the fact that I, as a vegetarian, ordered the lobster to its death, :-) I can’t believe I just added a smiley face.
abbie, thank you for the biology lesson. Seriously, I try not to kill any insects unless I think they’ll harm my children or my garden. So, yes I would kill a spider if I wasn’t sure whether or not it was poisonous, but if it were a daddy-long-leg, I’d probably pick it up and bring it outside. That’s just me.
And you’re right, I supported a fisherman’s business, and that’s awesome. That is how I justify purchasing a live Christmas tree each year too (aside from the fact that I’m also not exposing my kids to the plastics in the fake ones) . . . we try our best to support local businesses and farmers.
jess, i think the story is funny as hell! i can see you running around the grocery store thinking you are going to burn in hell for this and how you can make it right. i love you! it reminds me of an i love lucy episode, you try so hard to please and put yourself in a pridicament trying to please your husband and it wasnt even what he asked for. its funny!
Thanks Mom, :-) I love how you get me. Hee hee.
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