THE CRABS SHE GAVE HIM

By Renaldo Tartaré

After a night of roaring passion he had slept late into the morning, and when he finally awoke, he discovered she had already gone down to the docks. But she had left him something.

Crabs. She had given him crabs.

What a lovely gift he thought as he peered into his kitchen sink, filled to the brim with fat dungeness crabs that she no doubt had caught herself only the day before.

He would cook these crustaceans, he said to himself, and when her trawler returned to port that evening, they would enjoy a sumptuous and romantic feast together.

But then he heard on the radio that it was all-you-can-eat crab leg night at Red Lobster, and he slumped in his chair, a shattered man.

"The strumpet!" he cried, brokenhearted. "The wretched, seafaring slut!"

(Author Renaldo Tartaré is a third-generation turd sculptor.)