If you have a lobster story of your own you'd like to tell -- something that really happened to you or someone you know -- submit it to me. I'll post the best stories below. Be warned that I may edit stories for length if necessary. Submit your lobster story to: trevor@trevorcorson.com Sex Ed I'm an officer in the U.S. Coast Guard and I attended a Lobster Fishery Enforcement class on Cape Cod a few years ago. Recently in Connecticut, I visited the local market to buy a couple of lobsters for dinner. I informed the lady behind the counter that I would like two 2-pound female lobsters from the tank. She poked around, then looked at me and asked "Which ones are females?" I attempted to describe the difference. She didn't understand. "Why do you want females anyway," she said, "they're all the same to me." I told her that the female has a slightly wider tail and for what it's worth, every little bit of meat counts. She invited me behind the counter to show her the difference. I pointed out the difference, and gave her a short description of how they lay eggs, glue them to the swimmerets, etc. Along came the manager, slightly upset that I was behind the counter with my hands in the tank. After going through the whole routine again with him, he called over two more men who worked in the market. I explained the male/female identifiers at least four times before I could finally get my lobsters and get out of the store! Submitted by Eric Floyd of Atlantic Beach, NC Grasping at Claws I used to work in the fish market of a restaurant. One morning a woman came in and ordered six "chix" [small lobsters between 1 lb. and 1.25 lb.]. I dug them out of the tanks, put them on the scale, and punched in the per pound price of $4.09. She went berserk. "Your board outside states 'live lobster, $3.99 and up'!" I explained that the $3.99 was for culls [lobsters missing a claw]. "Culls aren't lobster!" she screamed. "That is false advertising! My husband works for the attorney general's office, and I will report you immediately!" She kept on screaming, up one side of me and down the other, insisting that a cull couldn't be sold as a lobster. A vein on her forehead looked like it was going to pop. I pride myself on my customer service skills. I had never spoken back to a customer. But after listening to her threaten me, I couldn't resist offering a reply. "Mam," I said, "if I ripped one of your arms off, wouldn't you still be a person?" Submitted by Meg Cloud of Kittery, ME Don't Think Lobsters Wouldn't Eat a Lobster -- Or You Lobsters put me through college. I've done just about everything in the business except actually haul pots. There is a great deal in THE SECRET LIFE OF LOBSTERS that is news to me. But I might take issue with the characterization of lobsters as not being opportunistic scavengers and cannibals. When I worked at the lobster pound and a lobster started to shed its shell in one of the tanks -- or if a lobster started getting "sleepy" (i.e. dying) -- the others would immediately start to cannibalize it. Consistently, they would start eating the tail and work toward the head. The more gruesome part was that while the back half was being eaten away, the front half of the lobster would still be alive. Always trying to save what we could, a partially eaten lobster would be taken out of the tank if we found it in time, so that the remains could be cooked for lobster meat. ("In time" meaning that the victim hadn't actually died yet, since lobster deteriorates so quickly after death.) In addition to working in a lobster pound, waitressing in a lobster house, and other lobster-related jobs, I also worked in a seacoast police department in New Hampshire. What lobsters (and crabs) do to a drowning victim who has been in the water a few days isn't very pretty. I think lobsters are opportunists and will eat anything available. Submitted by Sandra Munsey of Forestdale, MA Claws I read with great pleasure THE SECRET LIFE OF LOBSTERS. As a fellow native of Massachusetts, now living in Manhattan, I had the chance to cruise via yacht through the waters around Mount Desert last year. I only wish I had read your book previous to the trip. However, your book has strangely made me sensitive to actually cooking a lobster. I just can't do it. They know who we are and possibly where we live and I'm just gripped with a silly irrational fear that I will be on Good Harbor Beach, snoozing under the sun when suddenly the entire beach clears out in a panic, and just as the final scream of a woman electrifies me into consciousness, a terrifying pain shoots through my body as I find myself in the clutches of a true "super-lobster" dragging me through the sand and out to sea. Submitted by Michael Scalisi of New York, NY, who says it is a place where, come to think of it, lobsters would make exceptionally wonderful slum lords with their heightened skill of tossing the smaller weaker lobsters from their sad little caves of peace. The Luxury to Forgo Lobster My brothers and sisters and me are native Mainers, having grown up mostly in Portland. In the late 1950's and early 1960's my parents made Sunday nights a family night starting with dinner in front of the TV -- Wonderful World of Disney, Bonanza, etc. We could choose to have either lobster or Italian sandwiches. My parents wished we would choose lobster as it was cheaper than the Italians. We usually split half and half. Submitted by Elizabeth Manduca of Portland, ME The Perfect Dining Experience My family saves all lobster eating until we arrive in Maine. We almost never eat the crustacean during the rest of the year. My son, now 15 years old, will only let us eat a full lobster meal if the weather conditions are absolutely "perfect": it must be a rainy, misty evening and we must eat outside on a plastic enclosed marina deck! Usually we are bundled up in rain gear and our teeth chatter as my husband and I keep warm by drinking a pitcher of beer. Submitted by Debbie Ferry of West Chester, PA Getting Undressed I just finished reading your book. It is nice to know that there is someone else out there who finds crustaceans as humbling as I do. I think that they are totally underrated. Although, I have to say that the section on mating got a bit steamy, my goodness! Who knew that lobsters were so risqué? A few years ago I taught marine ecology on Long Island Sound, including a lesson called "The Molting Lobster." One of the perks of my job was that I would dress up in my large lobster costume and go to children's birthday parties and molt for them. At the time, I was focusing on the bio-chemical processes. But if I had known the interpersonal implications of molting in the lobster world, I am not so sure that I would have molted so freely! That experience haunts me. To this day, I am still known as "The woman who molts." Submitted by Aimee Fraulo of New York, NY A Hard Life Thank you for such an interesting, informative book. Two years ago my husband and I moved from Pennsylvania to Swan's Island off the Maine coast, near the Cranberry Isles. I took a job as sternman on a lobster boat; this was my first season and it has been such a great experience. I am 44 years old and cannot believe the things I am doing on that boat, and the conditions that I am doing them under. I pride myself in saying that I have only thrown up once since beginning the job in April, and we go out most days regardless of the weather. My bait bin is totally exposed on the stern, with no way to get out of the wind, and the subsequent spray coming over the sides. Our coldest day out was 15 degrees, with ice on everything. It was a struggle just to get down the ramp to the float without falling down. I am fishing with a man who is 60 years old. He has been lobstering since he was a 10-year-old boy. I have great respect for the men and women who go lobstering. It is by no means an easy job. What hardy stock these folks come from! All in all, it has been a bad weather year for fishing. Way too much fog through the summer and then lots of wind in the fall. We hauled out our last traps in December, which may have been the happiest day of the season for me. It had gotten very cold and with the wind, too, I was ready to be done. I guess all that sounds bad, but believe it or not, I've agreed to go again this year. I told my boss that this will be the last year, but I'll see next December. Submitted by Donna Wiegle of Swan's Island, ME On Trial Before God When my children were young, I purchased two live lobsters at the grocery for dinner. When I brought them home, my children named them "Lob" and "Ster." They wanted to go to the pet store and buy some food for them. I couldn't make them understand that they were not pets. That evening, I got the pot of boiling water ready to cook them. As I plunged "Lob" and "Ster" into the water, my children started yelling "Murderer! You're a murderer!" The next day at church, my children told everyone that their mother had murdered their pets the night before! Submitted by Vicki Bierman of Louisville, KY Do Lobsters Eat Real Men? Down East, boiled lobster is so cheap I feel like I'm making money buying it. But one summer, the little lobster restaurant near my brother's cottage in Maine didn't open due to the lack of summer help. So we headed south on Route One in search of a new spot. We found a place called "The Lobsterman." It had a red-and-white, hand-painted sign. Behind it was another sign, in flashing neon, that said "Plumbing and Heating." I turned into the driveway and could smell the lobster waiting to be dipped in melted butter. On the left were four, large, stainless steel lobster pots steaming on top of propane tanks. A college kid held silver tongs over one uncovered pot. The steam covered his face and most of the entire yard. "This is great," David said. "Lobster. Plumbing. Heating. Plant a garden, and you'd never have to leave." Inside were two small tanks, filled with swimming lobsters. On the counter was a pad of lined paper. The cashier tore off a piece, scrawled our order number in green magic marker, and handed it to us. On the walls hung postcards from all over the world. We also noticed a laminated article from a Boston newspaper. Instantly I remembered hearing the story before: A had man ventured into a supermarket to steal lobsters. He'd hidden them in his pockets and started to leave. But the lobsters, unhappy in their new home, had grabbed the man's, er, attention, below the belt. He found a door to an alley and tried to escape, but his screaming alerted workers, who discovered him doubled over in pain. Someone called the police -- and an ambulance. The policeman was asked if he would press charges. The officer answered, "No I think this man has been through enough already." David and I took our order number outside to the steaming pots, and gathered up three beautiful two-pound lobsters, some steamed clams, and dessert. I paid $29.00. So cheap, I felt like I was making money! Submitted by Janet Spurr, Marblehead, MA