Meet Our New Family Pets!
Last summer, Princess Roundhead and Chubs made us that deal that if we got them hermit crabs then we didn’t have to get them American Girl Dolls. We fell for it, got them their crabs and then we ended up at the stupid American Girl Doll Store anyway to spend part of their college fund on dolls no one plays with anymore.
Chubs’s crab died a few months later. Thanks in part to my heating pad contraption, Roundhead’s held strong through the winter and spring. I hoped that Woody (yes, that’s her name) would survive until summer and she did. (We don’t know that it’s a girl, that’s what Roundhead wants to believe.)
We went to Rehoboth last week and I told them to bring Woody. We were going to talk to the crab people to find out why Woody was pretty inactive as of late, and why she hadn’t ever changed shells like they are all supposed to do. At the store that’s most well known for selling healthy crabs and where we got Woody from, they said, “Oh, she needs a friend.”
For Fuck’s Sake. Of course she does.
Chubs picked a blue sponge bob shell crab, and named her Violet. Here she is! Everyone say hi to Violet!
Hello everyone! I’m Violet!
If you didn’t say hi to her you missed your chance because she’s dead now.
You see, Violet was not in the cage the next morning. We weren’t sure where she could have gone because as you see the cage has plastic sides. It isn’t exactly one you can climb out from. We were staying on the 4th floor and left the cage on the balcony so the hermies could enjoy the heat. We all looked over the balcony and thought, “No, she didn’t…”
We went downstairs to scour the boardwalk and Princess Roundhead said, “MOM! LOOK!” She handed me a tiny piece of a blue shell. We called in forensics and while the tests were processing, a nice man walked up to us and asked if we were looking for a hermit crab. I actually looked at him suspiciously and said, “What makes you ask?”
He said they found it earlier that day. I asked if Violet was in the E.R. but he said she was in the morgue, a.k.a. the patch of dunes by the building. He brought us over to her final resting place. I was convinced she was alive but Real Estate Dad was like, “Melissa. She’s dead. Give up.”
“Aren’t You People Supposed to be Animal Rescuers???”
Anyway, poor Chubs. We told her we would get her another crab, so back to the store we went with our saga of how Violet committed suicide. Somehow we ended up buying not one but two crabs. It seemed a better way to hedge our bets in case one of these two decided to tell the world to fuck off.
And that’s how we came home with 4 hermit crabs.
Right. The math doesn’t add up.
We brought Woody to the beach = 1 crab
Bought Violet = 2 crabs
Violet committed Suicide = 1 crab
Went to replace Violet, came home with Sandy and Violet2, plus Woody = 3 crabs.
This story is already long enough. I’ll finish the rest later.
