THE BOMB AND HOW WE BUILT IT

Later

Dinner was good. I’ve decided I definitely like lobster. I had only eaten it once before, when my father and I spent the summer in a beach resort in what used to be the national territory of Croatia. It was the faraway year of 2008. I was six years old. He asked me if I liked lobster, and I said I didn’t know because I’d never tried it, so he ordered me one, and I ate it and said, “It tastes like scrambled eggs”. He laughed and said, “No, it doesn’t”. So tonight was the second time I ever tried lobster. It doesn’t taste like eggs. My father was right. So I am now going to call him and tell him that.

Later Than Later – About Five Minutes Later

I called him. He wasn’t home. A woman answered the phone. I didn’t know who she was and she didn’t seem to react in any particular way when I told her I was his daughter. She asked me if I wanted to leave a message. I said I would like her to please let my dad know I had called, and that the reason I had called was to tell him that I had tried lobster for the second time in my life, and that I now shared his opinion that it did not resemble the taste of eggs. Not fried eggs, not boiled eggs, not poached eggs, and no, not scrambled eggs, either. She said, “What are you trying to do, lady?” and hung up. She was pretty useless, really.