Taco the Wonder Crab

Once upon a time, on a hot, summer day in July, I took the kids to the pet store and came home with a hermit crab.

I'm not sure why I allowed this to happen.  I wasn't sitting around earlier that day thinking, Hmm, I don't have enough things to keep alive around here.  Let's get a hermit crab. Nope, that's not at all what happened.  What happened is that a certain eight-year-old boy looked at me with enormous brown eyes and he begged.

And I caved, people.

I'm not proud of myself for this but that's what happened. I just gave in.  We walked out of that pet store with a small crab house, four different shells (because hermit crabs change shells when they grow.  Who knew?), a fake log for him to hide under, tiny water and food bowls, food, rocks, and a sponge to keep damp.

Oh yes, and a hermit crab.  This is him.

He was promptly named Taco.  I have no clue why but we have a cat named Peach so clearly food is held in high esteem in our home. (You’re shocked, right?) In fact, Ben, our fearless protagonist and defender of hermit crabs in this story, was already laying the ground work for a friend for Taco.  “Mom, maybe we could get another hermit crab so Taco isn’t lonely,” he said, on the way home from getting Taco. 

“Um, sure,” I answered.

“We’ll get another hermit crab and we’ll give him a Chinese name,” he said enthusiastically.

“A Chinese name?” I asked.

“Yeah, we’ll call him Burrito.”

(A good mom would have probably patiently explained that burritos weren’t Chinese but I was laughing too hard to do that. I did file it away for a homeschool lesson on countries and languages.  At the rate we’re going, we’ll get to it something like two years from Tuesday). 

But, I digress.  (You’re not shocked by that either though). We get Taco set up in his little home and then I quickly discovered something about hermit crabs.  They are insanely...boring.  They do nothing.  They stay in their shell and sometimes move around.  Mostly, Taco hid under this log for privacy.  Once I flipped on the lights in the middle of the night and saw him half out of his shell—a fairly terrifying experience.  Hermit crabs are not exactly cute and fuzzy. 

No matter what I thought, Ben loved Taco and so did Gideon. Gideon is younger than Ben by 17 months and has severe autism. He loves most animals but it’s in the “love-him-and-squeeze-him-and-call-him-George” Of Mice and Men sort of love.  He seemed taken with Taco right away so we spent the first few weeks trying to find just the right spot to put Taco’s cage that would discourage someone from getting his chubby little hands on a tiny little hermit crab.

But we had a few “incidents.”  One such happened early on when Gideon quietly (but with intent) took Taco out of his cage and when caught, them him across the room.  

Taco survived.

Another time, Gideon dumped out the entire crab habitat all over the kitchen floor.

Taco survived.

About a month after we got Taco, Ben lost interest for a few days.  As in, he just didn’t feed him or bother to check on him.  On the fourth day, Ben came to me terribly upset.  “He’s dead, Mom.  He’s dead.”  

It was true that Taco was not moving much.  And, honestly, it’s not easy to see if a hermit crab is breathing.  All day, Ben mourned the loss of his hermit crab who still sat in his cage high on a shelf in our kitchen.  After my husband got home, we discovered that Taco had been moving around the night before (hermit crabs are not as quiet as you think) and so Ben did something amazing—he gave Taco some water.  Guess what?

Taco survived.

Taco also survived a weird worm infestation in his cage, a transfer to a new cage, numerous handling by grubby little boy hands, a forgotten feeding or two, and one more close call with Gideon.  I have to say I was impressed.  Sure, Taco wasn’t adorable in the traditional sense.  He didn’t play fetch or lay on my feet or anything like that.  But thus far, he’d been able to withstand our family.  Probably

because he was hiding all the time but, hey, this is about survival so I understood.  (I’ve hidden in the closet a time or two so Taco and I had something in common).

A few weeks ago, we discovered that hermit crabs shed their skin? Skeletons? Whatever it is.  Yet another drama-filled morning where Ben was sure Taco was dead.  I have to say it didn’t look good at first but, after some research, we found out that hermit crabs do shed and that if they lose a leg or two, it’s fine. They’ll grow back.   Impressive, right?

Taco survived.  

Then yesterday morning, we were certain we’d seen the end of Taco.  Yesterday morning, Ben gave Taco a bit more food and water and couldn’t find Taco.  It’s not a big cage but it’s big enough to keep Taco secure.  There’s no way he could escape by himself.  And yet, Taco was gone gone.

It took us some time to piece together what may have happened.  Taco’s cage had been left down which meant Gideon had easy access to him.  The afternoon before Gideon had played in the kiddie pool in the backyard.  It was a longshot but Ben trudged outside to look for Taco there.

“Mom!” he screeched thirty seconds later.  “It’s him. It’s Taco.” He raced back inside and shoved Taco’s very empty shell in my hand. 

“Where was he?”  

Through Ben’s tears, I deduced that the shell had been floating in the pool and that Taco was on the bottom of the pool.  It did not look good.  In fact, it looked very bad.

 

A few moments later found me in my nightgown fishing poor Taco out of the pool with a spatula. We placed what appeared to be his lifeless (ugly) little crab body back in his tank. 

“Is he alive?” Ben asked.

I shook my head.  “I don’t think so.”

Ben buried his face in my side and cried.  We left him in his tank (although I’m not sure why) and Ben kept checking on him every 15 minutes, you know, just in case. And then, Taco moved.  After first, it was a little twitch and then he clearly rearranged himself.  Slowly, slowly (I suspect as he warmed up), Taco came back to life right in front of us.  He spent the next 18 hours huddled, shell-less, against the side of the tank.  But he was most definitely alive! This morning, after another moment of panic, Ben found that Taco had set up residence in a new, roomier shell. 

Taco. Survived.

So, if you’re looking for a low maintenance kind of pet.  One that has more lives than a cat.  One that appears to come back from the dead in near-death-by-kiddie-pool experiences.  One that’s ugly and doesn’t do much.  Then, you need a hermit crab.  They are like the indestructible superhero of childhood pets. I am now a fan for life.

I thought we'd all get along famously now with our miracle crab and go about life.  And then today, Ben decided he wants a pet tortoise more than anything else in the world.  “Ah, Ben, maybe another pet isn’t a good idea right now.  Look what just happened to Taco?”

“I know, Mom.  Look what happened to Taco and he didn’t even die. Having a pet is kind of easy.”

Oh boy.

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