Friday, February 29, 2008

A Moment of Silence for Veeky

I found our female fiddler crab, which the boys named Veeky, floating belly up in her water dish last night. The boys, especially Ten who is WAY too sensitive for his own good, were devastated. Ten cried himself to sleep. But only AFTER he found about a hundred different ways to blame me for the crab's death. Wonder where he gets that from?

According to Ten I either 1) had the water too cold, 2) or too hot, 3) or too salty, 4) or not salty enough, 5) I fed her too much, 6) or too little, 7) or the wrong kind of food...and the list goes on. Nevermind that I carefully researched fiddler crab care to the point where I'm almost certain I've earned an honorary doctorate in whatever -ology means Crab Expert. I think it would've been easier if I'd been a boring mom and just said NO when he wanted to bring home dozens of tiny, smelly animals. But I'm not bitter.

I quickly did a "burial at sea" when the kids were asleep, but I knew they wouldn't consider that a very dignified funeral. So this morning when they asked me where she was I LIED TO MY CHILDREN and told them that I buried Veeky in the flower garden near the spot where we buried our cat, Coda, a few years ago. Now they want to know if we can make a headstone and buy flowers to put on the grave? I hope they don't plan to do this every time a beloved pet dies because, Good Heavenly Day we have a lot of pets!

I can tell you one thing though--those are some sweet, sweet boys. Never was there a more beloved crab in all the world.

So, I'm guessing they won't want to go to Red Lobster with me tonight for some yummy crabcakes.

3 comments:

Grace said...

Give the boys our condolences. My girls would feel the same way.

Leslie said...

Can you talk them into planting something in liu of a headstone. You can landscape your yard this way and maybe get some gardening services out of their memorial maintenance duties.

princessapr said...

aw, I'm sorry to hear about Veeky. I know how traumatic that is.

My mom once secretly disposed of our fish and then had the nerve to replace the goldfish with another goldfish. The story goes that I woke up, peered into the bowl, and declared that the new fish was not my fish. However, I seemed to take the transition well. I mean, it was just a fish. I, sadly, think Just Fish was its name.

It's nice to know Veeky was surrounded by such love.