Saturday, July 28, 2007

Lobster Drop

The plucky fighting men and woman lobsters of Crustacean Company have the courage and the drive to succeed. They're well-equipped (goggles and scarves). They're dripping with esprit de corps—corpse?—and all the grit of the professional soldier class.

Truthfully, the only thing they lack is a good cause. Oh, and an enemy. It's a pity, really, all that patriotic passion, all these paratroopers on what amounts to a suicide mission. They fight not for freedom, not to bring down the despot, the tyrant, the maniac, but instead to get themselves cooked in big pots of boiling water. (It's not exactly the kind of thing that lends itself to memorable ditties. "I'll be dead for Christmas. You can diiine on me." Just doesn't pack the emotional wallop we expect from our war songs.)

Operation: Die is a thankless mission. They're "flown in live daily," just more fodder for the cooking pots. Happy to die for, um... for the sake of death, the grunts keep coming, fresh from small towns all across Maine. Cheerfully, they meet death head-on, splashing into it with gusto.

Inspiring, yes, and also insane.

(Thanks to Dr. Scrappy for the photo.)

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