Requiem for a Fiddler Crab

“Mommy, I need your permission to bring home a pet from school!” my nine year old told me breathlessly as she got in the car one Friday afternoon a few months ago. “The fourth graders get to choose a pet to bring home, but their parents hafta say it’s okay.”

“All right,” I said, vaguely remembering this tradition from when my stepdaughters were Punky’s age. My younger stepdaughter had brought home a small frog, which lived with us for a total of three weeks before hopping off to some no-doubt-glorious fish pond in the sky. “You have my permission. Are the pets going to arrive in a few weeks or something?”

“No, we’re bringing them home on Monday,” Punky said. “I chose a fiddler crab.”

“Monday?!” I said. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” she said.

“But we need to buy something to keep it in, right?” I said. “Did the teacher send home instructions on what we need to buy? Or how to take care of it?”

“Nope,” Punky answered airily. “We’ll just have to look it up on the Internet and find out.”

“Riiiight,” I said slowly. This was going to be interesting.

Shockingly, there wasn’t a whole lot of information online regarding the care and feeding of fiddler crabs, but we found what tips we could and then made a trip to Pet Supermarket on Sunday for a small terrarium, a bag of hot pink gravel, special salt for the water, and a container of food. On Monday, Punky triumphantly brought home her new crab. “I named her Skyler,” she said happily. “It just seemed appropriate.” Well, of course it did.

We carefully placed Skyler in her terrarium and Punky spent the rest of the day watching her scuttle around, getting acquainted with her new home. My daughter had spent the weekend reading everything she could find about small crabs and had become quite the expert- although I privately questioned her sources.

“I read that my crab could die of frustration if the walls are too steep,” she said worriedly as we watched Skyler unsuccessfully try to climb up the smooth plastic sides of her terrarium. “Do you think that’s true?”

“No, I don’t think that’s true,” I said. “I think she’ll just plain die,” I murmured to myself remembering our ill-fated frog.

“What Mommy?”

“Nothing.”

The next day, a friend came home with Punky after school. This friend had also done copious amounts of research on fiddler crabs, apparently using the same dubious source as Punky.

“We shouldn’t play with her too much,” she said knowledgeably after they had attempted to run our fiddler crab through a homemade obstacle course a few times. “If we do, Skyler will go into shell shock.”

“What’s shell shock?” I asked.

“That’s when she gets so freaked out, she falls asleep and can’t move, no matter what,” Punky told me gravely. “We definitely do NOT want that to happen.”

“Definitely not,” I repeated, nodding. I hadn’t realized Skyler would be so… emotional.

The girls played for a while and then I took the friend home. “Did you two have fun?” I asked Punky on our way back home.

“Kinda,” Punky said. “But we argued a lot.”

“About what?”

“About who knows the most about fiddler crabs.”

“Get used to that,” I said. “It won’t change. I argue with my friends about fiddler crabs all the time.”

“Mom,” Punky said, rolling her eyes. “You’re not funny.”

I didn’t mind her lack of appreciation for my humor. The fiddler crab experiment seemed like it was off to a good start. Little did I know, things were about to go downhill.

“Seven pets have died so far in my class,” Punky announced when I picked her up from school the next day. “Three died on their way home from school, two the next day and two the day after that.”

“Wow,” I said. “We’re doing pretty good! The last I checked, Skyler’s still among the living. Why don’t you feed her when we get home?”

“You can,” Punky said dismissively. “I want to finish Harriet the Spy.”

I grimaced, but let it go. Punky was a lover of animals- Surely, this was just a minor blip on our fiddler crab radar.

Except that it wasn’t.

Yes, after a day or two of complete Skyler obsession... Bam. Punky lost all interest in her fiddler crab. I, on the other hand, did not. I’d like to say that my tender heart was responsible, but the truth was that if Skyler’s terrarium wasn’t cleaned out every few days, it started to smell. And since we had to keep the terrarium in the guest bathroom- the warmest room in our house- I couldn’t let that bad smell go unaddressed. Thus, Punky’s fiddler crab quietly became… my fiddler crab. And I did not ask for a fiddler crab. And I did not want a fiddler crab.

But here I was, caring for a damn fiddler crab.

Skyler flourished under my watch, though, and made it through Christmas break pretty much unscathed. (One of her legs fell off, but I’m told that’s normal. No need to call animal control, people.) Although I didn’t enjoy the terrarium cleaning, I was pretty proud of the fact that she was very possibly the Last Fourth Grade Pet Standing.

And then came yesterday.

You know where this is going, don’t you? Yes, friends, Skyler abandoned her earthly shell for a heavenly one. In other words, she stopped moving. Forever. Permanent shell shock. I broke the news to Punky, who hadn’t looked at Skyler or even spoken of her existence in at least a month. I figured she’d take the news okay. I was wrong.

Punky lost it.

“Skyyyyylerrrrrr,” she wailed. “Not Skyyyyyylerrrrrrr!” Tears rolled down her face as she sobbed. “This is all my fault,” she cried. “I was responsible for her and now she’s…. she’s…. dead.” I hugged Punky and tried to console her, but it was no use. “I was CARELESS!” she moaned. “CARELESS with her LIFE! It’s all my fault! I didn’t care about Skyler enough!”

Watching her, my six year old began crying as well. “Mommy, please!” he sobbed. “PLEASE get Punky another crab! Oh PLEASE! She’s so sad!”

“Uh, we’re going to wait on that,” I said. “Because let’s be honest. I took care of that crab- and I don’t really want to take care of another one.”

In retrospect, this was maybe not the best moment for these particular words of wisdom. Fresh wailing commenced, with the end result being a tear-streaked nine year old between Dennis and me last night in bed.

“I may never see Skyler again,” she whispered mournfully when the lights were turned out.

“Yes, you will,” I said. “You’ll see her in heaven.”

“We don’t know if animals are in heaven, Mommy,” Punky said. “We just don’t know that for sure.” She started crying yet again. I didn’t know how to respond. I wasn’t aware that her Biblical knowledge extended quite so far.

“I bet she’ll be there,” I finally answered. What followed may well end up being my lamest parenting adage ever. “Everyone knows God especially loves fiddler crabs.” Even in the darkness, I could tell that Punky knew I was full of it.

Today after school, visitation and funeral services will be held for Skyler, Beloved Fiddler Crab of the Ferrier Family. She will likely be buried in our front yard, beside Willy. Songs will be sung. Prayers will be said. Tears will fall. Our lives will never be the same.

So let this be a lesson to you, parents. Learn from my mistakes and think long and hard before accepting a pet from your child’s school. My daughter has seen a dark side of fiddler crab ownership from which I fear she’ll never recover.

Oh. And if anyone can point me to some sort of Biblical assurance that fiddler crabs go to heaven… Well, you know where to find me.
 
Image via Clicksy/Flickr