JOHN WAYNE CRAWFISH (and if you don't get that title by the time you finish reading this entry, then I'm not gonna tell you)
Today was a beautiful, balmy day, and in the late afternoon, I got a yen for crawfish. Ahhhhh, crawfish...bottom-dwellers, dirty water bugs, eaters of dead things. I am not the least bit concerned about other's perception of these little delicacies, but that doesn't mean that I'm not aware of how hypocritical I am to be repulsed by forest people enjoying grub worms or fire-roasted tarantula asses. I know it's gross. Observe.
This...
is my lovely young daughter Libby, all of four and posing with one of our unfortunate dinner guests. See his bright red, spicy-hot steaminess. Ruminate over his cajuny possibilities. Be blissfully unaware of how large his last meal was, until you see the cumbersome, six ounce strand of recycled scavenge that I had to peel from that tiny crustacean's behind. Witness.
My ex husband and I used to argue over this every time we ate crustaceans. I say the above is the critter's last eats. My ex swore it was blood. I asked him to stop clearing the vein away if it were indeed only blood. He did...and I heard his teeth come down on gritty sand. I may hurl from the memory alone. Bleah.
I just try not to look too hard as I dismember the little harbingers of poo. I whistle, look away, and otherwise direct my focus elsewhere while I prepare them for ingestion. If I allow myself to contemplate the fact that I am literally wiping the ass of my food before I eat it, I will be out fifty bucks, staring at a now-inedible plate of shell-wrapped, steaming critter crap.