by Stacey Torres

Created on: December 31, 2009

What was meant to be a very romantic and special New Year's Eve turned out to be memorable for all of the wrong reasons.

I was 20 years old, and it was New Year's Eve 1973. Living with my very strict grandparents in Queens, my social life was limited and uneventful, that is, until I met Kenny. We both worked at Chelsea Bank on the west side of Manhattan, and had come to enjoy each other's company during coffee breaks in the employee lunchroom, and on the train ride home at the end of the day. We rode the Long Island Railroad instead of the subway. I got off at Sutphin Boulevard while he rode on to Long Beach.

Kenny asked me to spend New Year's Eve with him at his place. "Do you like lobster?" he asked me.

"Yes, sure I do." Not wanting to sound square (the word of the day), of course I said yes. I'd only had lobster a few times in salad at church luncheons, and slimy, white lobster sauce on shrimp. But, it would be my first New Year's Eve date, and I wanted to appear sophisticated. Kenny promised me a nice supper that we would cook together, and he'd escort me home later on the Railroad.

It was surprisingly easy to convince my grandmother to let me go on the date. Well, I never told her I was going to a young man's apartment; just that we were having dinner. Kenny's apartment was a short walk from the train station, and just a few hundred feet from the Atlantic Ocean. His apartment was literally under the boardwalk, and his back patio was covered with sand and snow in tiny dune-like drifts.

We shared a bottle of wine as we prepared a nice salad together, teasing and talking back and forth as if we'd been together for years. From time to time Kenny would steal a kiss, but he was really a gentleman that evening. He remembered he needed cigarettes and wanted another bottle of wine before we cooked the lobsters. A huge pot of boiling water was bubbling away on the stove, and he assured me the store was just down the block and he'd be back shortly. Kenny asked me to get the lobsters ready and we would cook them as soon as he got back.

"Sure. Where are they?"

"In the tub."

"The tub."

"Yes."

"What tub?"

"The bath tub." And, he was out the door.

The bath tub! Why on earth would anyone put something we were going to have for dinner in the bath tub? I couldn't imagine. Could he not thaw them out in the fridge or the kitchen sink?

My screams could be heard in the Hamptons as I entered the bathroom and saw those two creatures climbing

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