Lobster Hotline

"Hi, I'd like to place an order. Yes,
with melted butter."
(photo: Trevor Corson)

On the ferry from Provincetown to Boston this summer I spotted this cell phone, sitting unattended on a table. I hung around for a few minutes to see if the phone's owner would appear, but no one did.

Every time I think that I must be the most lobster-dedicated individual on the planet, I get trumped. If anyone should have a lobster cell phone it's me, and yet there I was, caught looking like a chump, no lobster on my cell phone.

Come to think of it, I don't even own a lobster necktie. I mean, come on Corson, they sell those at J. Crew.

On several occasions, guests have even shown up to attend my talks around New England wearing lobster pants. The owners tend to be the more elderly gentlemen who appear to belong to country clubs. But if I really put my mind to it, couldn't I start a lobster pants craze among the young?

All it takes is one lobster cell phone, and then . . .

Speaking of lobsters and cell phones, I recently gave a pair of fuzzy stuffed-animal lobsters to the daughters of a Japanese friend of mine who lives in Tokyo. The girls liked the fact that the lobsters matched their Hello Kitty cell phones.

"Hello, Kitty?"
"No, this is lobster."
(photo: Trevor Corson)

Despite my best efforts to explain that lobsters actually communicate by urinating in each other's faces (a fact that I thought I'd established beyond a doubt in my book), the girls were not deterred, as you can see.

Apparently in Japan, even lobsters, along with most schoolgirls above the age of five, now keep in touch primarily by mobile phone.