I hate having crabs

Wait, that sounded way worse than I intended. Let me rephrase that one, I hate having hermit crabs as pets. Whew, that sounds better.
Let me paint a picture for you. It was August and school was about to start back, so like many other families we realized we hadn’t gone on a vacation and went to planning in a haphazard fashion. Wait? Most people plan ahead? Really?
I digress.

So we planned to go to Florida and about 2 weeks later we were down there.

It was great and I love looking at our photos so it must have been a good trip, but we brought home some unexpected pets – hermit crabs. Now I know who goes to Florida thinking, “I gots to get me some hermit crabs!”?? But we were at the gift shops and they had them in there. The kids went wild with happiness about begged for a new pet. I buckled pretty quickly as I recall having them as a kid and liking them. Hubby wasn’t as quick to say yes, but he eventually said ok and we bought 2 crabs The first night we realized one never would come out of his shell, so we went back and got 2 more – you know in case that one was sickly or something.

This was a good call as both of Cheech’s crabs died in October. We had a crab funeral for them and since it was October we had tombstone decorations and the kids had to use those too. They drew pictures, cried a little, and we buried them.

Yes, Cheech has her Disney ears on at their funeral, clearly she was in mourning. Or she’s 5.

Anyway, that’s the way it went with both of her crabs, but the boy’s crabs live on. Oh do they live on. When we bought them I thought, I don’t want to just kill them slowly over time, let’s see how you’re supposed to care for them. This was a bad idea, as getting them some sand, spraying them daily with salt water, feeding them special food, keeping their humidity higher, letting them drink fresh distilled water – those are all the proper ways to care for a crab. I read all about it and followed it to a T.

Sadly, the kids love for their crabs waned.

I would randomly ask, “Did you feed and water your crabs?” and the kids would be all “No, we forgot!” Everytime. I thought, surely the cold weather outside and the chilly bonus room will cause us to have a winter burial and that’s ok. But it didn’t. Sometime over Christmas break hubby noticed that the crab tank had mold in it. Yikes! Mold? As if Cheech didn’t get sick easy enough!!

Early January Cheech got pneumonia and that was the final straw, so I took matters into my own hands. I got rid of the tank and returned the crabs to their original homes in their carriers. My hubby tried to make me feel bad, “You know you’re killing them right?” “I never wanted them to start with” Well, my answer was to call Sarah McLachlan or something and maybe they’d make a TV commercial about it. I know I’m the best wife ever, right? But now each kid has their original crabitat and can now transport their crabs around. They were so happy to have their pets portable again!

The bad thing is, they still forget to feed and water them. Also, they have to clean out the crabitats whereas before we just kind of left their tank alone.

I have decided that when these die we will not be bringing anymore home with us. If they want them they can get them day #1 of a vacation and at the end of the week we’ll set them free on the beach. This may be a win/win as they can play all week with them and we can set some captive animals free who were going to likely slowly die somewhere land-locked in a crabitat away from home. The only crabs we’re having at our house from here on out are the Xia-Xia Hermit Crabs. Clearly some toy maker at one point in time had this same dilemma (see pink crab above in photo). Please don’t call Sarah McLachlan on me, but if you do tell her she has to take these to her house.