August 10, 2014

The line goes around the corner…and beyond…

Wiscasset – Red’s

Mike and I stand in line—the end of the line, and it doesn’t move—at Red’s. Michael has been thinking about Red’s lobster rolls in Wiscasset for a long time, fifteen years long. An employee comes out with a pitcher of water and plastic cups, offering the iced liquid to any takers.

Our original plan as babysitters for the day was not to torture the boys, but I look at them now and can see they are miserable.  Bored, hot and hungry…probably not in that order. Perhaps we didn’t really think this through.  However, I did check the website, AKA their Facebook page.  Hot dogs and hamburgers are both on the menu. That was the important thing, or so I thought. How were we to know the line would be this long and all of the tables would be taken—no one eating—just saving space.

The days are a muddle to us, we forgot weekends could possibly be problematic.  Fifteen years ago there was no wait.  It wasn’t noon.  It wasn’t the middle of August.  And it wasn’t a Sunday.

Waiting…

Kevin and Owen look longingly at the shaded tables.  I have a brilliant idea and decide to deploy our forces, coaxing them to stand in a corner of the deck and pounce on the first vacated table, securing all of us seating for our lunch.

(The employee is back, now offering samples of their fried shrimp; too bad the boys think shrimp will kill them.)

I point out a table to Kevin that is about to be vacated and urge him to grab it.  Too late someone has snapped it up before he has the chance to even move.  He misses the second opportunity.  On the third try—a table for eight with only one man sitting there—they are told that others are coming and they cannot secure the end of the table for themselves.  I take matters into my own hands, spy an elderly couple—more elderly than me—and sing my sob story about hungry, tired grandchildren—they have five of their own.  They say they understand.  They agree not to let anyone else have their table. I instruct Kevin to keep a keen eye on them. They take forever to finish.

And waiting…

Mike and I inch up the line.

Suddenly I see Kevin making a move and Owen cries, “Mama Chat, Kevin got us a table in the shade.” 

We are short one chair, but obtain the extra seating from the lone gentleman sitting at the table for eight. As Owen and I sit and wait together at our partially shaded haven (I take the sun—I owe them that) while Kevin goes off to help Papa, one–only one–woman arrives and sits with the gentleman at the table for eight.  I don’t even have to tell you…

Now the employee is handing out red and white umbrellas to people in line. I never saw any restaurant so in tune to their customers pain, except for Kevin’s and Owen’s.

Forever…

Red’s Lobster Roll & a Hot Dog

Finally, with food before us, we dive in. I look up and see Owen carefully squirting ketchup on his hot dog.  I look down at my lobster roll, spilling forth with more sweet lobster meat than I can possibly pick up in this abbreviated hot dog bun.  As I try to decide how to attack it, I glance back up.  There is no evidence that a hot dog ever graced the paper plate in front of Owen.

Kevin exclaims, “I’ve never seen Owen eat that fast.  He even beat me.  He never beats me.”  Kevin, the king of speed—Owen, the prince of slow–only when it comes to eating. Was the kid hungry or what?  I feel a slight twinge of guilt.

Still not able to figure out how to attack the lobster roll, I start piece by piece, dipping each into my tiny cup of melted butter.  The boys want ice cream.  We point out the long line we would have to stand in once again.  They decide on their own that ice cream is a bad idea. Through all of this very long hour of waiting and standing and hunger they have never complained.  Never whined. Never fought. They have been valiantly patient.  Stoic.  I’m impressed.

Maine State Aquarium in Boothbay Harbor

Lunch and the long line now a recent memory we all pile in the car and head to the Maine State Aquarium in Boothbay Harbor—a stone’s throw down the road.  We arrive, walk in the doors…and it is tiny!  Kevin thinks we walked in the wrong way, but I keep going, thinking it is just the entry, but it is the whole thing.  They do have a huge lobster in one of the aquariums, and four sharks the boys can touch and a few other things.  They are satisfied.

Michael disappears, and when he returns he informs us he has signed us up for a special presentation on jellies.  A woman with long blond hair will come get us.

“Wait.” 

Although not geared to an individual of my age, I learn a lot.  The boys, previous participants at a marine biologist day camp in California, are familiar with the story.  However, they are polite, listen and appropriately interact with the cute young instructor.

 Michael helps with the craft project.

Young’s Lobster Pound

We return home and hook up with Brendan and Heather. It is the night of the super-moon and the six of us are off to Young’s Lobster Pound, at the edge of Belfast Harbor. This will be the third time in the one-and-a-half days since Brendan arrived that he has eaten here.  He tells me, almost unnecessarily, that he loves it. 

And he knows the drill.

The interior of the pound is loaded with tanks of live fresh lobsters, clams and other things.  It is also full of people.  Chaos reigns, but Brendan holds his hand up high, and soon someone is taking our order.  The number of the large woven bag that our food will be cooked in is “1”. This is also the number they will call when our order is ready.  While waiting I hear numbers called that are in the 300’s.

Brendan orders the same thing for his young family that he did the night before, a turkey-size roasting pan filled to the brim with lobsters, corn, oysters, clams and mussels–so many mussels you cannot count them all, and so many mussels they cannot eat them all.

The boys eschew the seafood in favor of other delicacies.  Owen takes a hot dog one more time, and since they don’t have burgers Kevin’s dinner is a peanut butter and Nutella sandwich from home. He refuses to eat lobster ever since he found out you had to plunge live lobsters head first into boiling water to cook them.  A friend of sea creatures since he was three years old, he refuses to eat any of them, especially now.  They are his friends. 

Not mine.