You might laugh...

But two nights ago we had a funeral in the house. A hermit crab funeral. For Hermie. Hermie was a good little hermit crab. We got him and he was normal sized, with a good, strong claw, in ideal health; the perfect Mexican Red-Legged hermit crab. We got him not knowing what a hermit crab can do. Overnight, he ate all the bad glass anenomes that had taken over the tank. Then he ate some algae. After that he ate a shrimp we threw in for him as a reward. We were very pleased with our little Hermie.

Until he ate the good anenome. And the snails. And any fish that were slow enough or small enough to catch. I still loved Hermie after all that, until the day he climbed up the glass heating element and ate my pink sea cucumber, Brain. Now, that might not seem like a huge deal to you, except Brain was a part of my Valentine's Day present two years ago. Brain was special. It was that day that I hated Hermie.

Yet, I couldn't get rid of him. Who in their right mind would want a now softball sized, custom shell needed, vicious hermit crab? That would be nobody, so we were stuck with him. He grew on us. We stopped trying to make the tank pretty with colorful anenomes and swimming fish. But we had Hermie, and he sure was a sight.

Last week he was hanging out on the sand, outside of his shell. Weird we thought. Hermit crabs don't do that. He went back in, but wasn't the same. He wouldn't eat, and just kind of hung around the bottom of the tank. Two days ago we threw in his favorite food, shrimp, and he didn't move. Hermie had gone to hermit crab heaven.

So we threw him a hermit crab funeral. And now we will celebrate his life by getting pretty fish. And maybe another Brain.

(Hermie entertaining Snuff at the beginning of our time together)