Ok, this is kind of weird but hear me out.

On Tuesday I went to an Asian supermarket and they usually have live fish, crabs, lobsters, clams and other stuff. The live lobsters cost about five bucks per pound, but there were these *special* lobsters in a different tank, and I don't know if this was a mistake or not but the price was $16.99 a pound. The label said they were "local" or something, I really don't know. I'll have to google search it after this journal post.

So there's this lobster in the *speciallobstertank* and I'm looking at it and it's looking back at me. I get closer and it gets closer to me. I wave and he/she/it waves back by its antenna. I move to the side and it follows me, so I start playing peek-a-boo.

I swear I was in front of that tank for like half an hour. But the weird thing was I felt the same way a woman feels when she gets asked out by a very handsome respectful guy. It's the kind of excited-yay-I'm-blushing-maybe-it's-love-at-first-sight feeling.

Am I in love with a lobster?

I told you this was weird. Now I've heard of people falling in love with objects. And I've heard of beastiality but this is not beastiality at all. I wasn't sexually attracted to it or anything.

I eventually left the market, and to my surprise I was thinking about it the whole car ride back just as if the lobster was a very handsome respectful guy. In fact, I'm still thinking about it now!

I do believe in reincarnation, but I've never been sure about animals or plants having souls like humans. Did the lobster feel the same way? I was going to buy it but I'd have no place to put it and at 17 bucks per pound I don't think I could even afford it. I have a betta fish (I love betta fishies by the way) and I don't think he'd like a big lobster in there with him.

I'm thinking of going back to the supermarket to visit it again. Ok. I'm going to date a lobster. Am I out of my freaking mind?

Also, I noticed these lobsters did not have claws. Or at least I did not see them.

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Ok, I googled and I went to wikipedia. I think this was a "spiny lobster."

-Spiny lobsters can be easily distinguished from true lobsters by their very long, thick, spiny antennae, by the lack of claws (chelae) on the first four pairs of walking legs, although the females of most species have a small claw on the fifth pair [4], and by a particularly specialized larval phase called Phyllosoma. True lobsters have much smaller antennae and claws on the first three pairs of legs, with the first being particularly enlarged.

Spiny lobsters, also known as langouste or rock lobsters are a family (Palinuridae) of about 45 species of achelate crustaceans, in the Decapoda Reptantia. Spiny lobsters are also, especially in Australia and New Zealand, sometimes called crayfish, sea crayfish or crawfish, terms which elsewhere are reserved for freshwater crayfish. The largest spiny lobster on record was over 1 m (3 ft) long and weighed over 11.8 kg (26 lb)[2].

The furry lobsters (e.g. Palinurellus) are sometimes separated into a family of their own, the Synaxidae, but are usually considered members of the Palinuridae. The slipper lobsters (Scyllaridae) are their next closest relatives, and these two or three families make up the Achelata. Genera of spiny lobsters include Palinurus and a number of anagrams thereof: Panulirus, Linuparus, etc. (Palinurus was also a helmsman in Virgil's Æneid.)

Although they superficially resemble true lobsters in terms of overall shape and having a hard carapace and exoskeleton, the two groups are not closely related. Spiny lobsters can be easily distinguished from true lobsters by their very long, thick, spiny antennae, by the lack of claws (chelae) on the first four pairs of walking legs, although the females of most species have a small claw on the fifth pair [4], and by a particularly specialized larval phase called Phyllosoma. True lobsters have much smaller antennae and claws on the first three pairs of legs, with the first being particularly enlarged.

Spiny lobsters are found in almost all warm seas, including the Caribbean and the Mediterranean Sea, but are particularly common in Australasia, where they are referred to commonly as crayfish or sea crayfish (Jasus novaehollandiae and Jasus edwardsii), and South Africa (Jasus lalandii). A new species, Palinurus barbarae was described in 2006.

Spiny lobsters tend to live in crevices of rocks and coral reefs, only occasionally venturing out at night to seek snails, clams, crabs, sea urchins or carrion to eat. Sometimes, they migrate in very large groups in long files of lobsters across the sea floor. These lines may be more than 50 lobsters long. Spiny lobsters navigate by using the smell and taste of natural substances in the water that change in different parts of the ocean. It was recently discovered that spiny lobsters can also navigate by detecting the magnetic field of the earth.[6] They keep together by contact, using their long antennae.[7] Potential predators may be deterred from eating spiny lobsters by a loud screech made by the antennae of the spiny lobsters rubbing against a smooth part of the exoskeleton [8]. Spiny lobsters usually exhibit social habit by being together. However recent studies indicate that healthy lobsters move away from infected ones leaving the diseased lobsters to fend for themselves [9].

Many spiny lobsters produce rasping sounds to repel predators. This is done by rubbing the "plectrum" at the base of the spiny lobster's antennae against a "file". The noise is produced by sticking and slipping, in the same way that a violin string is bowed, and is the only example of this kind of sound production in the animal kingdom [10]. Significantly, the system does not rely on the hardness of the exoskeleton, as many other arthropod sounds do, meaning that the spiny lobsters can continue to produce the deterrent noises even in the period following a moult when they are most vulnerable [10]. The stridulating organ is present in all but three genera in the family (Jasus, Projasus and the furry lobster Palinurellus [11]), and its form can distinguish different species [12].









Well I guess we do learn something every day.

If anybody else has had this kind of situation happen to them, I would appreciate comments and advice.