My friends, I must ask you to pause for a moment of silence. On August 22, a terrible tragedy struck Maine.

On Route 1 in Brunswick, a truck carrying the finest Maine lobsters, the Homari americani, overturned, spilling lobsters all over the highway. Seven thousand souls were lost in this terrible accident.

Within hours, Maine united in support of these lobsters, with each person asking the fateful questions: How could the truck drift off the highway? Were the lobster hurt badly? Were they still edible? Talk of memorializing this sad event began to enter the questioning.

In stepped the hero of the hour, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. They graciously agreed to fund the creation of a memorial to the fallen lobsters, pictured here.

Such a beautiful composition. It mentions the death of the lobsters with deep sadness. It has a likeness of the deceased. And it has that wonderful phrase “Try Vegan.”

I was shocked and outraged when my state denied PETA’s simple memorial. The Department of Transportation said that the highway could have no other signs and that the memorial would be a distraction for drivers.

Alas, another good deed defeated by government bureaucracy! More likely, the DOT laughed away such an “absurd idea.”

But PETA is known for its sane and logical rhetoric. In July, they delivered vegan “lobsters” to the Chinese Embassy.

China had put tariffs on lobster, among other things. I wholeheartedly agree with PETA’s belief that we should work with the enemies of the U.S. to change U.S. culture.

I also think these acts will change the culture of China. The embrace of lobster rights will herald a new age of Uyghur rights, Tibetan rights, Christian rights, maybe even human rights.

But PETA has also stood up for the truth of animals not treated ethically.

They found that the number of animals killed every four hours in order to feed the United States is the same number of people killed in the Holocaust.

This thought-provoking campaign was banned in Germany. The high court believed that such a comparison made the lives of those lost seem “banal and trivial.” However, this was the whole point of the campaign; that animal lives are viewed banal and trivial.

Another great act of PETA was when they took on the President of the United States. That’s right; our president did the most unspeakable evil: he killed a fly.

Our former president, Barack Obama killed a fly in an interview.

The nerve of the man! He even boasted of his lightning-fast reflexes!

How dare he when an innocent creature lies mortally wounded doing as nature intended? President Obama, however vile his act was, is not the worst enemy.

My coworkers this summer are the real enemies. They designed their own instruments of death and murdered altogether over 1,000 innocent flies. These flies had done nothing but what God intended: buzz around and look for food. Protecting food from flies has no place in a world of protecting animals.

(On a side note, my coworkers also killed two wasps with the instrument, but I’m sure we all can agree that wasps are a**holes.)

So before you eat that burger, I want you to contemplate everything wrong with yourself. Animals are friends, not food.

Just remember the plight of the poor lobsters, lying on the hot asphalt, preparing themselves for the great metal pot in the sky. Then, you will understand the sane and totally normal beliefs of the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

Think of the lobsters!