Crabicide: Who Hides From It? ........ [cooking; Partners; Murder; Humor? ] Poem by Bri Edwards

As a kid I experienced “frozen fish sticks” and tuna (from a can) , but

lately I’ve tasted lots of seafood types. My wife is from Japan.

A first for us: this month we bought two live crabs on a fishing boat,

and homeward, with my wife thinking “supper”, the two crabs we did tote.

After cooking, my wife would prepare them in order for us to feed, but

first she assigned ME to boil a large pot of salted water and do “the dirty deed”.

Neither of us had done such before; till now she’d bought crabs already dead.

I was not thrilled with my task, but I certainly did not dread (it) .

Off to her office, my wife assumed the computer stare,

leaving ME alone (with two live crabs) to cook our supper fare.

The water in the not-overly-large pot was boiling strongly.

My fervent hope was to complete my task correctly, not wrongly.

The first crab seemed asleep. Perhaps it was just resigned to its fate.

But the second was quite lively, perhaps resolved to stay off my dinner plate.

It spread its pincer-tipped legs in a menacing fashion, and

I WAS afraid it might just give my fingers or nose a thrashin’.

I was also afraid it might escape my grasp and avoid the certain death.

So I called into the next room and in rushed my wife all out of breath.

I said “grab the pot lid and help me get this sucker in the pot for sure.”

What followed next in our kitchen is now a distant blur.

Before I knew it (but after #2 was plunged to its death indeed) ,

my dear wife burst out crying, weeping so hard she almost peed.

“This was supposed to be YOUR job” she sobbed as I held the lid on tight.

But she recovered nicely and we dined on those two crabs that night.

My wife made a terrific meal though I’d have preferred a burger with potatoes, French-fried ………..,

AND she implied that I chickened out of doing ALONE the job of crabicide.