Crabtopia

 

  

 

What has happened to me, what has happened to me, I asked myself out loud as I stood at the kitchen sink, elbow deep in a large pot of coconut fiber. I looked around at the mess I was making. What in the world had I gotten myself into. The compressed coconut had come in a brick. I was currently adding water to decompress it and make it fluffy. After I was finished I would take the pot upstairs where it was warm to dry out. Then when it was dry my plan was to mix it with a hundred pounds of sand that I had already wrestled up the stairs earlier in the day. Have I lost my mind I said out loud? You never had one my daughter quipped  without missing a beat as she walked past me and was gone. She may have had a point there. While I wouldn't say I haven't ever had a mind, I will say that I have always had a mind of my own. Once I decide I am going to do something, I don't care what anyone else thinks, I'm going to do it. So it was with the hermit crabs. 

It started a couple of years ago. Katie and I were on our way home from somewhere and we passed a Petco. She asked me to stop. I obliged. We went in, and she proceeded to "do something I have always wanted to do" as she put it and bought a hermit crab, which her Dad and I promptly named Eugene, despite her protests. Over the year we became quite attached to Eugene. The Mr. would sit at his computer and make funny drawings of Eugene. Like a crab version of Sparta, or Eugene meets Chuck Norris. 

Then one day we decided Eugene needed friends. Or "Fwends" as the Mr. called them in his next series of crabtoons, which all featured Eugene and the possibilities new "fwends" could bring. The next time we were out we picked out some new crabs and surprised her with them. She now had three Hermies. Eugene, Pearl, and Earl.  We were enjoying her crab ventures very much. She kept us updated on how they were doing, and how Eugene was adapting with his new fwends. And the Mr. kept the crabtoons coming. 

Six months went by. And you know what happened next. It was the Mr.'s birthday and I really wanted to surprise him. Only of course it wouldn't be that much of a surprise. I had made the mistake of buying him a bird completely by surprise on his birthday the first year we were married. He named that bird Diablo and they hated each other. I wasn't about to make that mistake again, so I included him in the "surprise". We went to Petco and picked out a couple of Hermies of our own. I say "our own" because even though it was for his birthday, they quickly became a joint enterprise. Enter Big Bertha (BB) and Little Boy (LB) although it was a while before we named them. We never could agree, and I am still secretly calling them Rob and Laura. (Oh, Robbbb!) We got a ten gallon tank and some sand and a coco hut, and some crab pellets, some salt water, some bottled fresh water, and we figured that was it. We never bothered about humidity, or temperature. Or whether the water bowls were deep enough for them to fully submerge in. We thought we had done a good thing. We hoped they were happy. They came out at night and played. Sometimes they woke us up making noise. Once we caught LB without his shell. BB had moved into LB's shell and was waving her own shell in LB's crabby little face, and LB was out of luck. We thought it was funny at the time, however I think there might have been a shell jacking going on, now that I look back. After some research I realized they needed more shells. They shell jack if they don't have enough. That is never good for the smaller crabs who end up getting up the short end of the stick. In that instance it worked out however. We turned off the light and let them work it out and next morning everything was back to normal. We did some more reading and watched some You tube videos and realized we were doing everything wrong. Like everything. Like not enough sand. Like inadequate water bowls. And not enough humidity. In short our Hermies weren't happy because we weren't taking good care of them, although we meant well. So we decided to do something about it. Which led to me standing in front of the kitchen sink wrestling with panfuls of coconut fibers and a hundred pounds of sand. We decided to double the tank size. And add more sand. And upgrade the water dishes. And along the way we have picked up some really fun ideas, yet to be implemented, like a hamster wheel! and a tire swing! More wood for them to climb on. More hidey holes. Much, much more greenery. We have already added more shells and fixed the humidity problem. And we stopped feeding them crab pellets and started making them tiny gourmet meals every night. The Mr. says the crabs are eating better than we are! The practical side of me is thinking I have lost my mind. I mean, really they are just hermit crabs. But they are hermit crabs in my care. And they are God's creatures, even though they may be tiny and insignificant. And as long as I have them I want to take good care of them. The last thing I want is miserable hermit crabs. By the time they came to us they had already been through some serious trauma, and that's true of every hermit crab you find in the store, whether it's Petco or a tourist shop on the beach. All hermit crabs are captured from the wild, and the things they do to them after they catch them are terrible. They are one of the most abused animals on the planet. So as crazy as it sounds I want my two or maybe three (we are planning on adding "Little Ritchie" soon) to be amazed at the wonderful spot they landed in. It won't be as great as being in the wild, but it won't be half bad if I can help it. 

Sadly, we lost Eugene during the winter apocolypse Texas had last February. There was a power outage at Katie's house and it just got too cold. The Mr. penned a crabtoon Eulogy for Eugene and we all mourned. Maybe we are just a bit crazy, and I guess there are better things I could be doing on a Wednesday night, but at the moment I can't think about what that might be. I have to go scramble an egg for dinner. Not for me. For the crabs.