A year and a half ago, I was assisting an elderly woman with putting together a cookbook. The second recipe we worked on was a stuffed lobster.

Keep in mind the fact that I am a vegetarian (even when I did eat meat, lobster was not on the menu), and had never before heard how to prepare a lobster.

Mrs. Anonymous (clever pseudonym, yes?) hands me an empty cardboard box and asked me to accompany her to the freezer. There I am, wearing dark brown faux-crocodile leather peep-toe heels and a pencil skirt, standing innocently next to a murderess as she prepares to nab her victims.

She opens the freezer, pulls out two large lobsters (I’ll name one Maxwell and the other Eleanor – in a Beatles mood today) and places them in the box. We walk back to the test kitchen, and place the box on the counter. Mrs. Anonymous lays the lobsters on a chopping block, and excuses herself to wash her hands. I’m sauteeing onions on the other side, and I was ready to swear I saw Eleanor twitching. How weird! It’s probably just the defrosting process that makes it move.

Mrs. Anonymous came back into the kitchen with a huge knife in hand. Both lobsters were starting to stir and I came to the sudden and horrifying realization that those lobsters were alive the whole time.

I couldn’t move without shoving Mrs. Anonymous, so OF COURSE I had to stand by and watch. She started to pet Maxwell. Read that again; I’m not making this up. She gently stroked the lobster from head to tail, all the while maintaining eye contact with me and making noises with her mouth about Thanksgiving meal planning. Then the blade of the chef’s knife starts pointing towards Maxwell’s head, and starts to penetrate all the way down to the cutting board.

WHACK! 

I stared in disbelief as she slammed the knife down hard, through the shell, RIGHT BETWEEN THE EYES.  She proceeded onto Eleanor, stroking the poor creature and then cutting in half.

The next part is where I started to feel as though I would throw up: she grabs their claws and starts twisting and ripping them off of their dead bodies. EWW EWW EWW.

I won’t go into any more gruesome detail…suffice it to say they were fully disemboweled.

I never spoke up before, and for this I apologize to all lobster-kind. I’m an accomplice to murder in the first degree! Double homicide! It was premeditated! I hope Mr. McCoy gives me a good deal; I’m not ready to face life without parole.