In Memory of a Fallen Lobster

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

For the past two years I have worked in Virginia Tech’s West End Market dining center and for the last year I have known JP (or Homer, or Herman. No one could really agree on the name.)

JP arrived at West End during February of 2007 and has since become the mascot of JP’s Chop House, from which his name was taken. In the time since his arrival, JP saw hundreds of other lobsters come and go. But not him. You see, JP was too big to sell. He was at least twice the size of any of the other lobsters. So JP sat in that tank, his claws banded, watching the world go by outside his big gravy-flecked picture window.

Eventually, JP found a friend in the form of Lefty, a lobster who couldn’t be sold as he was missing a claw. Other lobsters came and went but JP and Lefty stayed in the tank. Frankly, I’m not sure how they survived as long as they did, especially considering that no one ever feeds the lobsters.

Saturday night, however, tragedy struck West End Market. The tank’s malfunctioned during the night and the motor that circulates the water through the filter stopped. In the morning, both JP and Lefty had departed for that great big bisque pot in the sky.

Personally, I always thought that JP would outlast all of us. His staying power was incredible (especially given the whole no food thing) and he had been in the Chop House longer than all but 4 student employees.

Farewell, JP. Farewell, Lefty. You will be missed.

2

I was hoping for a happy ending, with drawn butter.

Too bad.

3

Lobster too big to sell/eat? Does not compute!

4

There’s a reason that they’re called “bottom feeders.” Excreta is a rich source of nutrition.

I, too, was hoping someone had managed to save up to buy the big guy. No lobstah’s death should be wasted like this. :frowning:

5

Our lobsters are sold at a flat rate. We couldn’t sell him because someone would be getting twice the bang for their buck.

No lobster’s death is ever really in vain. JP is currently sleeping with the fishes (well, technically a shelf below the fishes) in our walk-in freezer. In a few days, he’ll join several of his departed brethren to make lobster bisque the soup du jour. I may have to have a bowl in his memory.

6

You’re saving dead lobsters to make bisque? Have you southerners no respect for Homarus Americanus?

7

My son-in-law works in a pretty good seafood restaurant. He says that a lobster that is at or near death (other than as imposed by the cook, of course) is not that good for the usual process like steaming or broiling, so as a matter of course if it isn’t moving it goes into the soup.

8

Dead lobster, live lobster, you can hardly taste the difference if you add enough possum.

9

On this occasion let me offer my condolences and suggest that JP and Lefty’s memories can be honored by reading Trevor Corson’s The Secret Life of Lobsters. It put me on a seafood-themed-nonfiction kick that led to Mark Kurlansky’s Cod and The Big Oyster.

10

Wait … a lobster died without a national phone-in vote?

Why do you hate America?

11

Obligatory Onion story.

12

This is the saddest story I have ever heard. I just poured some beer out on the curb.

13

sniff I still miss Larry.

14

First thing I thought of was David Foster Wallace’s Consider the Lobster.

15

You miss my point. I wasn’t saying they should steam a dead lobster, I’m saying they should dispose of it. A lobster that is already dead, and has been for an undetermined amount of time, is only suitable for the dumpster. If it isn’t moving, it isn’t food.