Bella: Can I win a hermit crab at the fair?
Me: I don't care. We can feed it to the dogs.
Bella: Dad says yes, so I think it can stay at his house :)
Me: Lol, I was teasing about the dogs, if you want it and will take care of it, have at it. Good luck on the game.
4 hours later I get this in a text:
Bella: Say hi to Sheldon
Me: Holy crap, you WON one???
Bella: Yeah. Its gonna stay at your house till I go to dads. When I get home, can we go to the pet store to get stuff for him?
Me: Sure, do you have money for that?
Fast forward to Sunday afternoon where Bella arrived at my house with her friend AND her new pet crab. She had $60 saved up, so I dropped her and friend at petsmart and went and ran some errands (yes, my 50th trip to Menards this weekend..)
In the checkout lane, I start getting more texts, starting with this beauty.
Bella: When will you be here? We are having some money issues..
Me: Not enough?? be there at 5. Figure out what you don't really need and put it back.
Bella: we need it all. This dumb crab needs a lot of stuff to live. Its because of the cage.
Me: well figure it out, get a smaller one .
Then of course I decide this is too much freakin texting and called her. After discussion, Bella resolved to put the cage back and we would head to walmart later to see if they had smaller/cheaper cages. I picked up the girls and we dropped her friend off at home. By the time we start driving away, Bella is visibly upset. She's now realized she succumbed to peer pressure from her friend to try for this crab that the other girl's parents were smart enough to say no to. She's also figured out that crabs can be very noisy during the night and I think it seriously creeped her out. She's in way over her head on this crustacean commitment. After a little bit of losing my cool (yes, i'm good at this) I tell Bella that we are heading back to petsmart where she will return all the material she's just bought. She will also get to ask the clerk if they take hermit crabs in for adoption.
Unfortunately, PetSmart doesn't take crabs (can't say that I blame them... who really WANTS crabs??)
Bella got a homework assignment that night, she had the duty to call PetCo and the Humane Society before I got home Monday from work to see if we can find a better life for Sheldon. Because option 3 was I was going to release him in the wild, where he would have at most 3 amazing months of sunny humid Iowa summer freedom before his ultimate demise in the fall from temperature drop (hermit crabs are tropical, didn't ya know??)
Monday night saw us in Bever park, saying a very short farewell to Sheldon as he scurried off in the underbrush near the stream Bella released him by.
And the lessons we learned from this adventure?
- Never ever play games that involve pets as prizes, you might just WIN.
- Things that are marked FREE are usually NOT free.
- It pays to think things through and try to see past the fantasy you pictured in your head to the reality of the situation.
- You get to OWN your mistake and work a plan to address fixing it.
Unfortunately Sheldon got the short end of the stick in this life lesson. RIP little hermit crab.
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