Crab Legs

Crab legs have got to be one of my favorite foods.  Not only because they taste good, but they're so damn carnal.  Think about it, what other food can you think of where you steam an animal in its own exoskeleton, break the shell to pieces with your bare hands and stuff your face with the steamed, dripping meaty insides.  If aliens sent a recording device from outer space to observe humans and take notes and they happened to pop in on my family eating a big ol' plate of crab legs they'd probably think we were savage beasts and either run or exterminate all human life.

The last time I ate crab legs was when my dad's buddy Mike came to visit.  This was a year ago, when I still lived with my dad and played videogames in my joblessness.  The particular video I was playing that day was Metal Gear Solid 3, my personal favorite.  While dad and Mike were steaming crab legs, I was running Snake into an electric fence over and over again to make my dad laugh.

Then, came dinner time.  Dad, Mike, my sister and I spent a good hour slobbering over a table full of crab carcasses.  We cracked open the shells with ferver, sucking down the meat with cups of melted butter.  Eventually, we had had our fill, and our glorious battle came to a close.  I decided to take a bath.

In the tub I went through the basic steps of a bath.  Once I decided I was clean, I noticed a strage smell in the air.  Naturally, being paranoid about my health, I started freaking out thinking it was a smell I emitted myself.  Now, this was no fart smell.  To me, it smelled like infection and I thought I was going to die.

I drained the tub and wrappped myself in a towel.  I feebily opened the door to make my way towards the phone so I could call my all-knowing mother to see what the hell was wrong with me.  Suddenly, I was bombarded by shouting coming from the other side of the house.

"Oh my god, that's just terrible!"

"That's disgusting."

"Eeeeeew!"

It was then that I realized the smell was not coming from me, but the kitchen.  I clothed myself quickly and bolted towards the highest concentration of stink.  There, I found my family immersed in a cloud of thick, putrid smoke.

"What the hell is going on in here?!"  I shouted.

"Gnaaaagh!"  Was all I got out of anyone, so I joined the panic.  Finally, my dad decided to grab the industrial sized warehouse fan from the basement and uses it to blast most of the smell out of the kitchen.  It still smelled, but the smoke was now outside.  We opened every window and door and then I got my story.

My sister explained to me that Mike and dad noticed that there was one crab left from the feast and they figured they oughta just throw it in the pot and eat it later.  However, dad never checked to see if there was water in the bottom of the steamer.  The pot ended up dry-cooking the crab causing the fat to bubble out and fall to the bottom of the pot,  Here, the fat burned into a horrible, burnt smell of a mess.  When the pot started spewing smoke, everyone panicked and I thought I had an infection somewhere.

The smell was so strong that we eventually had to leave the house for the evening.  That is how a crab drove me out of my house and also the reason why I always think of MGS3 when I think of crab legs (and vice versa).