Life is full of Strawberries... and Lobsters

They're everywhere.  Cut into slices, into chunks, some whole, some with the leaves removed, remnants of days past when strawberries were eaten but not finished, in crepes, salads, shortcakes and muffins.  And the strawberries that remain to clog the fridge, some carefully stored in Ziploc baggies, others still new in their boxes; those strawberries have plans.  Plans for future salads, green and fruit; plans to be sliced and scattered over angel food cake, baked in a tart, or arrayed simply in a semicircle around a white pile of sugar.  Will they fulfill their destinies?  That, I am afraid, is solely up to me, and I feel the weight of it nagging at the back of my mind constantly along with painful memories of the countless brown, furry, too-soft strawberries in the past that have been cast into the disposal or the trash can... ah, the waste of it.

It's all made a bit worse by the fact that for the next two days I will be on a phase of my diet where I myself cannot eat strawberries.  Hence, I must devise a way to stuff strawberries into others.  No berry must go uneaten!  It will be my mission.  Too bad I have other things to do with my time or I could, and would, safely ensure that each of my strawberries would find their purpose in a human belly, all juicy and lush-red and studded with their seed gems...

OK that's enough.  You're being cut off.  You want strawberries, there are plenty at the grocery store these days as I know all too well.  Go there.  Then you too can feel your front teeth sinking down through the flesh, from red to white, the bite you've taken then floating back onto your tongue which deftly shifts it between your molars where each meeting releases a rush of sweet tartness, shining like sunlight and warm ice cubes and rose petals and...

Let's talk lobsters.  A couple of days ago I was in that same strawberry-filled grocery store, numbly pushing my cart through the aisles, shuffling slightly as I struggled to take in the meaning of each item on my list.  I was tired, in the store for the fourth time in as many days, barely keeping up with the mad bonanza of birthday parties and wild family gatherings that, with my parents in the Middle East, my sister unable to drive, and my brother and sister-in-law closeted with adorable baby triplets, have seemed to be pretty much all my responsibility this year.  I passed the tank of lobsters once early on, a sliver of my brain taking in their softly swaying antennae, realizing in some sort of mild daze that yes, those creatures in there were alive, then sweeping on towards the bread aisle.  

Some minutes later on my next pass through the seafood section, the lobsters caught my eye again, except this time they commanded a full two-thirds of my brain because they were what can only be described as running.  It was a mad rush, a lobster stampede.  They'd all spooked each other, it seemed, bolting around the perimeter of their circular tank as if their lives depended on it, the red-brown spindles of their legs churning back and forth, searching for purchase on the smooth floor of the tank or on each other.  I shouldn't say all, because there were a core few at one spot on the bottom who couldn't be bothered with the madness.  They huddled together there and got run over. 

I found myself reminded of the exhilaration of being trampled in the mosh pit at a Pantera concert.  I'd been pulled into it by a cheerful brown-haired guy who I'd never met before or after, and I'd say my four inch wood-soled platforms were most definitely the wrong shoes.  I lasted perhaps one minute before an ankle turned and I found myself in the dirt, feet over every exposed inch of me, the rush of motion and the pattering of curiously painless steps on my back.  Around and around they went as I curled up into a ball I wondered for a moment how this would end.  Then unfamiliar hands gripped me under each armpit and I was lifted effortlessly up and deposited into the watching crowd, as if set onto the side of a swimming pool.  The owner of the hands asked me if I was alright; I assured him I was and thanked him, and then was inexplicably swept into a blaze of mindless exultation, there on the edge.  I found myself doing "rock hands" for the first time, pointers and pinky fingers outstretched, arms raised.  It seemed the natural thing to do in the situation, and I lifted them into the air and roared, mouth wide, eyes wild and shining...

I resurfaced from my memories to find there was a man standing there across the tank, also watching the lobster race.  He had wondered what I was looking at and had found the lobsters as apparently riveting as I had.  The man was in his forties, overweight, wearing conservative golfing-type clothes and white sneakers.  He looked normal.  Soon after, another man joined us, a tall one, and the three of us stood there motionlessly for a moment as if we were in an aquarium, eyes glued to the angled limbs and bound claws in the tank.  It was too much for me, the strangeness of it, and with a half smile I turned my cart away and glided off to frozen foods.