Dear Lobster, I am breaking up with you.

I just came across this article over at cbc.ca, "Lobster, the new bologna: campaign", and i have to call bullshit.  Not just any bullshit, "Hot and Smokey Cheddar-Ranch Bullshit, now with grill marks"  Lobster never has been, and never will be, anything like bologna.  In terms of cost and availability, there is no viable grounds for comparison.  The only area in which there are parallels, is popular perception.

I've been told shrimp used to be classy.  It was one of those rich people foods, like caviar.  Than shrimp started showing up at casino buffets in the middle of the dessert, or at sizzler in $9.99 all you can eat specials.  That's a a great deal, because it's a classy food, and very expensive, right?  Not, If your gorging yourself at sizzler, it's not.  The perception that it's a classy food, combined with American love for all you can eat specials has undermined once respectable shrimp.  One could argue that a lobster dinner date generally ends in "happy happy fun time", whereas a shrimp dinner wins you a sloppy hand-job in the backseat of a Buick, if your lucky.  

Sure over the last few decades lobsters been working it's way down the social ladder, with the likes of Olive Garden and Black Angus, but lobster still has a few shreds of dignity left.  To lower it to the status of "composite meat" seems a cruel at best, an act of spite at worst.  If you could select your own bologna from a tank of angry captive Bologna's, and have it boiled alive for your dining pleasure, than I'd say we're on the same playing field.  (See diagram 1A)  

Diagram 1A: A tank of inquisitive bologna's await their uncertain fate.

If lobster were really cheaper than bologna, therein lies the potential to bring about a sea change in the American palette.  Traditional uses for Bologna would be usurped, and replaced by this once classy dish.

• Howard Stern would cease to throw bologna at strippers asses, and instead use lobster.
  
• Skippers would start serving popcorn lobster bites.
• The poor kids would be trading their lobster bisque for Lunchables.
• Turducken would be upgraded (or downgraded) to Lobturducken
• Instead of wrapping greasy foods in bacon, internet superhero's would wrap greasy food in bacon, and then stuff them in a lobster.

I'm not ready to give up on lobster just yet, but mark my words, that day is coming soon.