A lobster is best known by its color after it’s

cooked

I have a little stuffed red lobster on my bookshelf. It’s cute. Today it asks me, what if you had a doll of a little girl, and that little girl was cooked — boiled, roasted, grilled — would she lose her charm? Notice I’m not only suggesting boiled alive, I’m giving you options. The plush lobster sits there with two shining black plastic eyes, looking delicious. I remember that cold lobster roll on a hot New Hampshire day, my friend S. and I laughing by a picnic bench. As I start to drool, my little red lobster turns the room into an ocean, floods it with cold salt water. She turns green and disappears, spraying urine out of her eyes, every pheromone laughing only one of us can drown.