Apparently crabs make a noise like screaming when they die. You can hear it if you boil hundreds of them at a time.
I was told this by a guy at a party who says his family cooks these crustaceans on a regular basis. Crustacean is a nice word. It implies crust and ocean (the two intrinsic components of the animal) without sounding overly silly. Crustocean.... wouldn't work.
I'm not sure the level of beer* the fellow had attained prior to our conversation, but he was overly serious about the truth of his statement. I asked him if he meant "...bunnies, I know bunnies scream," and he told me, "no, crabs. if you put enough of 'em in a pot at once, you had hear this strange high-pitched noise like screaming."
Then I told him a story about a little girl who got electrocuted (non-fatally) by unplugging a refrigerator. She managed somehow to begin to scream and maintained the same frequency until she was found by her family. He laughed. She didn't die from it. I told him I don't know if she's died since, but we can laugh because at the time the story was told to me, she was fine.
I suppose I keep this blog to remind myself how morbid my day-to-day interactions are.
*My speculation on the level of beer refers not to whether he was accurately depicting his established memories, but to whether he would normally converse about such morbid matters or if he was less opposed to discuss them due to the booze.
