Rock? Lobster

Canadians from Port Alberni to the Bay of Fundy have been riveted by the tale of Big Dee Dee, a rare LOUS or Lobster of Unusual Size.

Indeed, at a strapping ten kilos and old enough to vote in human elections, Big Dee Dee was unquestionably the king (or queen…I didn’t look that closely, I must admit) of the ocean floor. Until s/he was caught, that is. Caught and put up for auction like a common slave. The biggest bid came from a mysteriously nameless Ontario organization and is this the right time (yes, yes it is) to tell you that my father used to make a pretty penny back in the Seventies shuttling semi-comatose lobsters from the Maritimes to Toronto on condition he not look inside more than the top case, as the coke and pot were packed in between lobsters on the lower levels.

Seafood, particularly live seafood, confuses the dogs’s noses, you see. That’s why every time you see mixed seafood on sale at T&T you can bet that Hastings is going to be wild that night; they can take a bath on the price of the seafood, as it is incidental to the profitability of the actual cargo.

Mysteriously nameless Ontario organization, but we can be pretty sure it wasn’t the Boy Scouts offering a cool five thousand for the meaty crustacean. And, indeed, they would have had their wanton way with Dee Dee, had it not been for Vancouverite and vegetarian Laura-Leah Shaw and her two anonymous Eastern backers, who made a counteroffer of $3000 and hella publicity. It looked as if the lobster were saved, that Dee Dee would once again crawl and flit in the turbid, reversable waters of The Bay of Fundy.

But it was not to be.

t’s bittersweet news for Big Dee-Dee, a 10-kilogram lobster, as the creature has avoided a butter bath on a dinner plate, but won’t be heading back to the ocean anytime soon after all.

Instead, Big Dee-Dee is destined for a coastal New Brunswick marine facility…

Breau said on Sunday that he’s decided he’ll instead be giving the lobster to the Huntsman Marine Science Centre in St. Andrews.

“I thought about it for quite a few hours but I thought it’s best for business to do it like this,” Breau said. “No bitter feelings.”

Au contraire. To those faceless, nameless Ontarians, it leaves a distinctly sour aftertaste. I hope that’s one fisherman who doesn’t end up swimming with the fishes.