Stumble it!
April 12, 2006
A Bad Day For Crabs
After I wrote about our unsuccessful attempt to hold hermit crab races, a reader set me straight as to the proper method for racing them. Yesterday we followed her advice and drew a small circle in the driveway surrounded by a larger circle. The idea was that we’d place Bobby, Frankie and Clyde in the middle of the small circle, and the first one who made it outside the large circle would win.
Drew lifted Bobby and Frankie out of the cage and set them into the inner circle with no trouble. Clyde is the biggest crab, and when Drew lifted him, Clyde’s lifeless body slipped out of its shell and dropped to the bottom of the cage with a thunk. We were all shocked at Clyde’s apparent demise and much hoo-ha ensued, caused in large part by the noxious smell that emanated from the corpse.
We inspected the body carefully, and that’s how we learned that the hind end of hermit crabs looks nothing like a traditional bottom, but more like a tapered cork, as if the crab were part merman but without the fins.
(click if you want to inspect the hind end more closely– without the smell)
While we were looking at him, Clyde seemed to move. Maybe somebody accidentally bumped his cage, or maybe it was our imaginations, but Drew wasn’t taking any chances. He wanted to make sure Clyde was really dead. So he shot him.
We didn’t let Clyde’s death stop the race, which Frankie won. I went back inside to check on my Pork Lo Mein with Snow Peas and watch a bit of the news. A while later the door opened and Drew and Porter ran inside, sobbing. After making sure no one was bloody or concussed, I discovered that the duo had gone to the front yard to play soccer once the race had concluded, but no one had returned Frankie and Bobbie to their cage. They had crawled away .
We spent a good while looking for them. You would think that Bobby’s turquoise shell would have made him easy to spot, but our crab hunt was unsuccessful. In a little under an hour we’d gone from owning three hermit crabs to owning zero.
I wasn’t that upset about it, but I cried a few fake tears for the boys’ sake.
*************************
Calm down. We didn’t really shoot him. Drew just poked him a little with a toy gun until I made him stop.
Today I bought a bright purple Dyson using my 20% off coupon at Bed Bath & Beyond. I’ll test it and let you know how it performs!
Posted by Anne Glamore @ 12:51 pm • Animal Stunts - Pets, Boys: Demented & Dangerous, Let's Eat: Meals and Recipes Stumble it!
Stumble it!
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August 29th, 2007 at 12:30 pm, My Tiny Kingdom » Our Last Fishy Performance Says:
[...] We’ve boxed and buried guinea pigs, flushed fish, and had hermit crabs wander away in the middle of an electrifying race, never to be seen again. Back in June we managed to kill a crawfish and Speedy the goldfish on consecutive days. The very first post I wrote was about the death of a different goldfish named Speedy and his enemy, Brownie. [...]