I’m not so sure about this idea: for the low, low price of $2,995, you can essentially “buy” your own lobster trap on a Maine lobster boat, and the fishermen promise to send you everything your trap catches in the course of the year.
More specifically, they guarantee that they will send you at least 40 lobsters, but if “your” trap snags more than that, there’s no upcharge for the overage. Plus, they’ll also send along some mussels and clams, a dessert item, and some plastic lobster bibs with each shipment of lobster. And they also promise you can be pen pals with a Real Lobsterman and even “track” your lobster trap online.
My calculator tells me that you are paying about $75 per lobster (plus the rest of the stuff and shipping costs) if you buy into this. That’s a little more expensive than some of the other “ship anywhere” Maine lobster businesses, but not beyond the pale of reason. The big downside I see is that they want you to make a season-long commitment instead of just making a one-time special occasion purchase. I suppose that’s one way of guaranteeing that they’ll make money on their boat, although the last couple of years have seen lobster prices go up in New England because of a shell disease that is reducing the catch and so I doubt the boats have too much trouble selling everything they catch.
You’re also paying for the illusion that there’s a trap with your name on it being thrown off some boat from Boothbay Harbor, and that some crusty old Mainer is sitting down to write you an e-mail once a month telling you all about his adventures on the high seas. You go right on believing that if that’s what it takes, but you’re also probably the same person who thinks the sex chat lady is really a hot teen slut who wants it bad.
Obviously I’m missing out on a business opportunity here. For the lobsters, that is.
