Short Story: Crab Meat. Plus Some More.

I was going to write a more serious essay today on the nature of power and how it relates to the human condition, but, nah. I'm just not that serious a writer, you know? I just wish I hadn't gotten a page into it before I realized it was garbage and deleted it. Sigh.

No, I'm going to try something else. Someone said something to me the other day, and the phrase he spoke struck me in such a way that I immediately wrote it down. It was insightful and evocative, while being at the same time completely stupid. Not many can accomplish a feat like that, and I praised his unique phrasing. It's the first line of the story. Enjoy.
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Crab makes everyone a hobo.

Think about it. Crab is a dish, if not served only in the classiest restaurants, at least restricted towards restaurants in the upper echelons of respectability. It is highly regarded as a shellfish, more so than shrimp or oysters or similar. Crab has been served at numerous high-powered events, even several presidential inaugurations. Clearly, your average crab eater is at least decently well off and from the middle to upper middle class.

But then watch people eat crab. They crack it with implements, and tear it apart with their bare hands. Juice and butter drip down their wrists as they wrestle with their meal. The meat inside is found and torn out with ravenous fingers or tiny forks. Chips of carapace and bits of meat fly everywhere in the process, and the whole procedure is generally a messy and unkempt affair that leaves a demolished crab scattered across a plate and often a few secondary plates, and the eater smelling of shellfish for the remainder of the evening.

What kind of behavior does this remind you of?

Hoboes are not regarded for their clean and efficient eating methods. If a person is desperate for food, he will do pretty much anything to get at it. Rooting through garbage cans, finding styrofoam containers with half-finished meals, McDonalds wrappings with the remnants of a cheeseburger, even old cans with some stew or beans still on the inside. Disgusting, people say. Revolting. That someone could descend so low. Quite often, it isn't the hobo's fault, but that's a topic for another time. But people see the messy eating habits of the hobo and shake their heads.

And then they go out and they have a nice bit of crab for dinner. The setting is different, the circumstances are different, but the result is the same. Crab is the great equalizer, that brings all men and women, rich and poor, high-class and low-class, to the same slavering, carnage-filled eating methods. It can even be seen as a throwback to primitive times, where people tore apart animals with their hands, barely cooked (if at all), stuffing the meat into their mouths and discarding the bones.

Think about that. And while you do, think about life.
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...Okay. That was neither as long nor as good as I originally thought it was going to be. So, I'm sorry for inflicting that on you, and I'll give you a few more thoughts that you can more safely digest before commenting. (Digest. Ha. I made a funny.)

My best friend just called me and said he hit level 68 in World of WarCraft. Now he can fly, as he is a Druid and they get the flying ability at 68. I couldn't fly until I hit 70. I am bitter. At least I still get to do all the cool flying quests, like dropping bombs on demons and fighting giant birds, that he can't until he hits 70. I am soothed. Also soothing: I just broke 2,200 gold in WoW.

I've been waking up early the past few days. I woke up early Monday so I could finish writing my speech for Public Speaking. I'm pretty sure I did well, it was a group project and my bit turned out all right. The material on my subject was sparse, though, I had to turn a page and a half of material into a five-minute speech. I had to wake up early yesterday so I could take my dry-cleaning into the dry-cleaners, and also so I could go out to breakfast with my girlfriend. <3 And today I had to wake up at 7:15 in the flippin' morning so I could study for my physics test. Which, again, I'm pretty sure I did well on. I hope I got an A (80's an A in that class), otherwise I'll have to stay until December 13th so I can take the final. That would suck.

I actually have made an effort to eat more healthy. I've been eating fruit and drinking those V8 Fusion fruit 'n' vegetable drinks like they're going out of style. And come to think of it, what's the origin of that expression "like it's going out of style"? Why would you do something a lot if it's going out of style? Wouldn't you generally taper off an activity that's going out of style, at least, if you paid any attention or cared at all about whether or not it was in style?

So. Yeah. This one was kind of short. Well, they can't all be dingers. Friday's update will be better, I promise.

REPLIES.

Mom: I liked that phrase very much, myself. And POWERTHIRST is solely responsible for bicep-jets and door-fortresses everywhere. I am spending less money. Trust me.

Stephe: This has to stop. You write a long comment, I write a longer reply, you write an even longer comment...this escalation is getting out of hand. I'll be forced to devote entire entries to just responding to you. Not that I want you not to respond voluminously, I'll...eh, I really don't know what I was leading up to with this. So I'll be somewhat quick. POWERTHIRST rocks. I don't care how healthy you eat. My heart and soul are worth at LEAST $5.27, mister. And your last comment made me lolz. Yes, lolz.

Jake: Saturdays are my busiest days! I have all-day football games and practices to consider. Maybe Sundays. And POWERTHIRST, sadly, wasn't around back when I was a kid. Too bad, because otherwise I'd be good at SPORTS. And you'll find a way to defeat Stephen's machinations. Try using POWERTHIRST.

Kait: Enough with the cracking on Stephen. Why do I want to hang out with him for four hours? Because he's my friend, is why, and I haven't seen him in months. And I'm convinced he'll follow you around if you go to FSU, simply because he finds it amusing and has nothing better to do a lot of the time. That is, if he can fit it into his schedule of fortifying his apartment and bragging about how well he eats.

Vic: I don't like mushrooms, or cheap bulk fruit like cantaloupes. They just stuff fruit cups with them because they cost so little. And I WAS dedicated to the gym...for a while, anyway. Since you apparently talked yourself out of me doing the laundry at your house, I feel I have nothing to say on the matter. And your little birdie will have a job whether or not I take Sanskrit.

So long.