Who WAS That Guy?

Before I begin this post, I have to be sure that the reader fully understands my incredibly irrational phobia of all things legged. Well, not all things. All insect-ish/crustacean-ish/creepy organisms. I'm okay with a nice legged mammal. But remove that fur? I have vivid dreams at night about creatures - generally leggy spiders or roaches with faces - with umpteen legs crawling all over me and between the covers on my bed. (At this point, I generally leap up in bed screaming and trying to high step my way out of danger, but that will have to be another story for another day) I can't watch Fear Factor, I am a very jumpy gardener, and I have my exterminator on speed dial. The movie that scared me the most was Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, because I was so incredibly skeeved by the bugs when the kids got lost in the backyard.

Consider yourself fully backgrounded.

Last weekend, I went to my first crawfish boil. Crawfish, you might be thinking, some little guy in the fish family. So they'd like you to believe! Harumph. You know what they rolled out of that pot? Big red roaches. Roaches with pinchers. My full body shudder had to have had some effect on the Richter Scale as I quickly steered myself over to the broccoli casserole and Fritos table. Ya'll, the people at that party absolutely swarmed that table like vultures. They were not gathering to look at the little beasts....they were there to eat them. And do you know what's worse? They touched them! With their bare hands. Yes, way.

I gawked in amazement as long as I could stand it and then thought this situation through a bit more thoroughly. These...critters were crawfish. They dwell in mud. Some call them mudbugs. People scrape them up out of the mud and throw them live in a pot so that they will squeal and then they eat them with a nice side of potatoes. A bunch of red roaches with a side of potatoes. Huh. Here's what I want to know. Who was that first person who said, "Hey, lookit what I found here in the mud! Let's eat it!" Who was that guy? And what exactly was his IQ? I'd like to know the same thing about the first person who ate oysters. I mean, what were you thinking there?

Here's the strange part: I adore oysters. I can suck down a whole peck of oysters by myself and be just as happy as a...okay, seafood similes are a little cheesy in this story...lark. Happy as a lark. I have no problem with oysters, and let's be real: oysters are just a big 'ol booger in a shell. And sometimes they have sand in them for texture. What's great about that? And, again, why - WHY? - would that first person test that out? "Hey look, hon! Here's something slimy and grey inside this here crusty shell....wanna eat it? I picked it out the mud just for you." I just don't get it. But I will eat it. Clearly, oysters are sans legs and that makes me happy.

But, back to that first crawfish guy? I think I know what happened next. One of his close relatives then decided that it would be a real delicacy to experiment with some other parts of the crawfish. Let's be real here. This varmit is shell, pinchers, antennae and legs. Once you've eaten that little bit of meat, it's time to let go. Apparently, that's just my opinion because I watched people suck crawfish heads. "To get the good brain juices" they said. Uh huh. Okay. Yeah...no. Pass the broccoli.