A ton of crayfish
We went to the crayfish party at IKEA in Stoughton (Mass.) tonight, and we weren’t alone. Just under 300 people had bought tickets for tonight’s party, according to an employee, and a ton of crayfish (literally a ton, I was told) had been cooked for the two parties (the first one was last Tuesday). The party was apparently put together by a German employee who used to work at IKEA in Sweden, and another employee who speaks Swedish. I’m happy to report that IKEA Stoughton’s staff did an excellent job in pulling it off.
You’d think it would just be a bunch of Swedes and their better, American, halves who’d go to a Swedish-style crayfish party, but there were all kinds of people there. Lots of joking, of course, about how IKEA should have served alcohol, but having a bunch of drunken Swedes stumbling around, singing strange songs in an obscure language, is no way to elevate a company’s status.
It was a kind of strange, though. For one thing, it was perhaps the first time since I was 14 or so that I ate crayfish while sober (”Crayfish requires these beverages” as a classic anti-temperance poster has it). It was also my first crayfish party in America. Truth be told it wasn’t a party at all, but a buffet, but the idea of eating crayfish anywhere but at a crayfish party is so absurd I’ll call it a party anyway. Besides, all-you-can-eat-crayfish at 10 bucks a pop? No way I’m going to turn that down.
