Rocket

This amazingly gross creature was one of our family pets. This is Rocket the hermit crab. He came out of his shell one day and I thought it was to move into a bigger shell. I have never seen a hermit crab outside the shell and after 4 years figured out how to use the macro part of my big lens. It was so simple I feel like an idiot and I alone know how I made it work. I intend to keep that way!! I digress. ANYWAY, after Rocket sat outside his shell the whole day and didn't move I realized that he had come out to die. I took comfort in the fact that I could tell my two drama filled daughters that he didn't die alone, but there was no way on this Earth I was scooping him out. It was a perfect job for Ron. Rocket tipped over, I told the girls he died and there was much weeping. While Reagan cried she wrote this:

ROCKET:
*Hermit Crab
*I got him on July 20th, 2008
*He died on October 9th, 2009

I hope to see rocket in heaven along with a bunch of my other pets. Rocket was a great hermit crab and I am sad that he is gone. He was a boy who loved to play with speedy.(Rebecca's hermit crab)I am glad Miss Janna gave him to me. I will see him in heaven and he will be as healthy as can be. I am so glad God put Rocket and Speedy into my hands. I can't wait to see you in Heaven, Rocket...Love Reagan

Isn't that sweet? So to help the girls focus on something else my friend Chrissy invited us over for dinner so the kids could play and we could get out of the house of death and despair. We were gone for 2 1/2 hours. Upon our arrival we went to pay last respects before bed and THE CRAB WAS UPRIGHT AGAIN!!!! I immediately started having flash backs to my childhood when my bachelor Uncle let my sister and watch Pet Cemetery as very young children. We also got to eat about a trough full of ice cream...Reagan was somewhat frustrated that she had wasted all of that emotion and those kind words on a pet that was not dead. Not the reaction i expected. I suppose if I ever die and happen to be raised from the dead I won't take it too hard when they are annoyed!!
So the girls go to bed with a happy heart, I go to bed and close my door fully expecting to hear a crab claw scraping at my door. I wish I was joking. Anyway, we get up the next morning and the crab is dead again...for sure this time as he is starting to smell. I don't know if Speedy propped him up the night before or what happened but he is definitely dead now. Well he was dead or murdered because the slight smell was enough for me to put him in a plastic bag for burial. Either way, we morn the loss of Rocket who was indeed the very best hermit crab a kid could have.
Oh and I had great fun telling Reagan to take him down to show my dad on one of his visits. I told her Papa John would LOVE to see Rocket. I sat at the stairs like a child and laughed to tears as I heard my Dad say...OK REAGAN, SERIOUSLY TAKE THAT UPSTAIRS I DON'T NEED TO BE BY YOUR CRAB!!!! ROFLOL it still makes me laugh. Yeah...Rocket he was a blast...lol...