RIP, Bubba

The twenty-two pound lobster hauled out of the Atlantic off Nantucket has died. Although at first he was thought merely to be resting or pining for the fjords, he has expired. He has joined the choir invisible. He is no more.

Sensitively named "Bubba" by the lobsterman who snagged him, this leviathan is thought by some scientists to have lived through both World Wars and the Great Depression. The noble Bubba certainly fit the description of a fellow of his species, owned by Gerard de Nerval: "It does not bark, and knows the secrets of the deep." The logical thing to do with such a scientific marvel was to put him on display in a Pittsburgh fish market, where he passed on (this could be a possible solution to the Social Security crisis, as America is currently overwhelmed with people who lived through world wars and the Depression. Can they all be sent to fish markets in Pittsburgh?).

Was it the saline levels in the tank that done him in? Was it the stress of being moved so often? Or, like Andre the Giant, was he merely the victim of a weak heart? Where's Billy Crystal to make a movie about Bubba?