Giant Lobster Escapes Arizona Eatery

Some are calling it the largest crustacean catastrophe in U.S. history. Others are calling it the beginning of a widespread seafood revolution.

During a lively LobsterFest at trendy Scottsdale, Arizona bistro, The Galloping Grotto, a giant lobster named Louie escaped the grasp of chef Henri Bergson.

Bergson, respected across the state for his seafood bisques, was about to drop Louie in a giant cauldron of boiling water when the lobster broke free and scurried out the back of the restaurant. "You haven't felt pain till you've been smacked in the head with a really big lobster claw," explains Chef Bergson. "We pride ourselves on serving only the meatiest lobster, but after this, I'm gonna have to re-evaluate that policy."

Waiters chased the lobster for several blocks, but the seafood entree showed surprising ingenuity and was able to lose them on the local transit system.

"We were all watching the freeway toward California, assuming he would head toward the ocean," said one worker. "But he fooled us and took a bus north instead." Only after it was too late did they realize Louie was not a Pacific lobster at all, but an East Coaster. Authorities in six states have been alerted that Louie may be headed for his hometown waters in Maine.

Along the transit bus route hundreds of sympathetic onlookers held up signs that read Run, Louie, Run and Free Louie. "People everywhere are rallying to the lobster's support," comments Sherman Milhouse, a local Sociology professor. "Like the Cuban boy, Elian Gonzales, this lobster has become a symbol for the downtrodden throughout America, many of whom are trying to escape their own pots of boiling water."

Several Hollywood movie studios are already bidding for the rights to his story. "This will be a heck of a film," says one studio executive. "It's The Fugitive meets Free Willy. And it's a true-to-life, fish-out-of-water story. I see Dustin Hoffman as the lead. Dusty's been dying to do a crustacean. It's got summer blockbuster written all over it."

"We were all watching the freeway toward California, assuming he would head toward the ocean," said one worker. "But he fooled us and took a bus north instead."

The lobster stopped by an investment house where brokers tell us he studied several lower-priced equities. "He's a bottom fisher," says one broker. "There's no doubt about that."