Lobsters on a Plane

Mack Hall


So why do the lobsters get to ride for free?

You find your seat with your small carry-on, sit as assigned as part of the herd, and then observe that while United Air Lines has required you to pay $20 to check your suitcase, other passengers are entering the cabin with bags larger than the one you checked, multiple bags, and even large cardboard boxes containing lobsters. Live lobsters. Critters. All for free.

In Halifax, Nova Scotia a shop in the airport sells live lobsters to the sort of people who wear God Bless the USA baseball caps made in China: “Look what I brought ya from Canada, honey – a live lobster!”

Oh, yeah, a clicking, clacking crustacean. Just what everyone wants as a souvenir.

Not only does United Air Lines interpret their own baggage rules loosely, so does the United States government. Everyone entering the country must complete and sign a form stating that he is not bringing in any agricultural products or varmints. So what’s with ignoring the lobsters?

Did the lobsters have to sign a document stating that they were not bringing any parts of humans into the USA?

Is there a possibility of Mad Lobster Disease?

Are the lobsters patted and wanded? Do they have to take off their little claws while scuttling through the metal detector?

And speaking of claws, if I can’t bring my little Swiss Army knife on board, why aren’t the lobsters disarmed too? Could this be part of a plot? Is Dr. Doom lulling us to sleep with real lobsters and waiting to take over a United States aircraft with evil robot lobsters sold through a secret agent pretending to be an ‘umble dealer in live food at the Halifax airport?

The poor cabin attendants on airplanes have to deal with all the humans, excess luggage, and lobsters, trying to close the cheap plastic hatches on too many bulging bags and boxes. During the flight folks get up and open the hatches to let their excess junk drop on other folks below them.

AT DFW the lobsters got off all right, but United Air Lines whimsically offloaded the checked luggage at diverse places. When I and my party finally found ours, no one was watching it and no one asked for our claim checks. Anyone could have walked out of the airport with my dirty shirts and my loose loonies and toonies.

Shame on you, American Air Lines. Your baggage-handling practices stink as badly as those lobsters. I want my money back.

What really happens to the lobsters who were carried out past the baggage carousels with no delay? Do happy spouses or significant others clap their hands in glee and exclaim “Oh, wait until I show this exoskeletonal varmint to the neighbors!”?

Are the children sent to take their new little friend Sparky to the back yard to play?

“But Daddy, I wanted a Sergeant Preston of the Yukon action figure with a machine gun and a rocket launcher!”

“Sorry, son; Canada ran out of Mounties, but I brought you this swell lobster!”

Does the United States Department of Agriculture send a S.W.A.T. team based on a neighbor’s anonymous ‘phone call about unregistered foreign livestock?

I heard a rumor that next year halifax is going to upstage Pamplona with an annual running of the lobsters down Water Street, past Tim Horton’s, and down to Murphy’s Wharf, eh. Any fatalities will be carried out to sea on Theodore Tugboat and dumped into the water at George Lighthouse with full military honors.

Either that or stuffed into the overhead bins on United Air Lines