Lobster Boils

Who wants in?

Julia Child once asked, “Why not have a community duck press, lobster pot, fish steamer, pâté en croûte mold, or spring-form pan?”

I don’t know, Julia. Why don’t I?

Sharing a lobster pot with my downstairs neighbor Kenny is frankly something I’ve never considered.

Kenny is a nice enough guy. He has a lovely wife, a new baby, a small dog named Mellow. Nancy, our landlord, tells us he’s a successful accountant.

Kenny is also a DJ. His weekend sets start in his living room around 9AM. A bumping bass pairs great with a cup of coffee, in case you’re wondering.

“YO YO YO. THIS IS DJ KENNY SPINNING BEATS”

These beats last well into the evening. His wife will take the baby to her parents. His “boys” will come over. Weed wafts up to my bedroom. It makes sense why his dog’s name is Mellow. At some point, there’s an argument. Usually around gambling. To the untrained ear, like mine, his tracks sound exactly the same. I’m sure he’s making art.

Apparently, becoming a dad at 40 was such a stressful event that Kenny spent most of last year pacing out front on the astroturf. It got so relentless that Nancy ended up buying him a lawn chair.

“Your dog’s pissin’ on Kenny’s feelings chair,” she said to me one morning.

Keep in mind, this has all been accumulated through word of mouth and sharing a floor/popcorn ceiling with Kenny. We’ve never actually had a conversation. I don’t even know Kenny’s last name. I can’t imagine what he’s pieced together about my life.

Now I’m supposed to approach him about a lobster pot? It feels unusually intimate. We’ve put the cart before the horse.

I spend an entire week working up the courage to ask him.

Even if Kenny didn’t like lobster, who wouldn’t want to host this kind of party? After living in New Orleans for a year, I can tell you there’s nothing more fun than a front yard seafood boil.

Heck, maybe we co-host these parties together.

I do have Kenny’s email. Nancy loves to fire off a pointless email chain a few times a month. But since he didn’t give it to me directly, it seems invasive.

Then there’s slipping a note under his door, but that’s unhinged. I could double down and write the inquiry by cutting the letters out of a magazine. As a joke.

I don’t know Kenny’s sense of humor.

I try to catch him in passing, but he gives such a quick head nod and “sup” that it’s hard to work in anything else.

The other day he offered to bring up my new AC unit, but I buckled under the pressure and told him I was fine. I did, in fact, need his help.

At this point, I realize how much time I’ve spent thinking about Kenny. If someone looked at my conversations with ChatGPT, they’d think I have a crush on him.

I decide it’s best to avoid him for a while.

But the question keeps me up at night.

What if I approach Kenny and he says yes?

This could potentially change our non-dynamic dynamic. We have a good thing going. Here I am trying to tinker with it.

Joint custody would require us to talk to one another. It’d definitely include a shared Google calendar. I'd have insider access. I’d know he was taking his family to the lake July 12-18.

“How was vacation with the kids?!” I’d have to ask, a forced smile chipping away at my soul.

“Great! How’s your grandma doing?!” he’d feel compelled to respond, exhausted from pretending to care.

I have enough of these forced relationships in my life already. I'm sure Kenny does too.

Because of this I’d find myself avoiding him. Ducking behind cars. Making sure the coast was clear before taking out the trash.

Resentment would build. It’d only be a matter of time before we started fighting over who got it last Christmas and whose turn it was this year. One of us would get nitpicky about the other not cleaning it properly. A button would break. Accusations would fly. We’d drag our significant others into it. Lose sleep at night writing texts in our heads of what we really wanted to say. I might even get into DJing just to really piss him off.

Finally, I’d passive aggressively tell him to keep the damn thing.

I hated living in New Orleans anyway. Everyone’s fingers get way too shiny from picking apart seafood. Shell bits get everywhere. It’s disgusting.

But then my husband would remind me we have a lobster boil on the books and that it’s too late to cancel. So in a fit of rage, I’d go out and buy my own. And because Julia is right about not having space, the thing would end up in my hall closet. Exactly where it’d go anyway.

So… I guess my point is… if anyone sees a good lobster pot on sale, let me know. Apparently I’m in the market.