getting crabs.

Yesterday, Ashley and I took a day of Colossal Christmas Shopping. And since it is the holidays, that pretty much means retail shopping.

We headed down to Winston-Salem, where they have a mall that is bigger than any mall needs to be. I won't go into the time we spent trodding around, looking at half a million handbags with initials on them, wondering if a big group of Catherines, Claires, and Cindys had come through just before us and taken the bags she could buy for her sister. Just so you know, things with your first initial on them are so in this year.

We were in the bottom corner of the mall, the very last few stores, when I saw this little booth in the middle of the hall that proclaimed "HERMIT CRABS". I was fascinated. It was true that I had not yet bought anything for my nephews Sidney and Lincoln. It's true that I'm really not even required to buy them anything, cause they're little and I'm a slacker college student. But I really wanted to buy them some hermit crabs, because that is exactly the kind of thing a Cool Aunt Sandra would do.

These crabs, they had a gimmick. Their shells were painted. Some were solid color, but most of them had a picture of Santa or Spiderman or whatever on them in very bright colors. The man running the booth, a young Latino in a Pink Floyd shirt, tried to help me pick out a crab by pointing to the ones that little boys would like. But those shells were so unnatural, I couldn't bear to get one. I managed to find two crabs with seashells that looked like seashells instead of billboards. I got two because that was the deal: two crabs, a little food, a sponge, and a small cage. It only occurred to me after I left that I may have overpayed, as it was a booth in the mall and I probably could have shopped around and bought a couple of crabs for less. But hey, overpaying is the spirit of Christmas, and I think the boys will love them, so it's all good.

I am fascinated by these crabs. I never knew hermit crabs to be quite so active, or even quite so ugly. I set up their cage last night and and then just watched them for a while. They hide in their shell if you move around, but after a few seconds they pop out and walk around, accepting you as part of the scenary.

Now I want to keep them. I'm not going to, because I really don't have room for them. And I don't have a great history with pets, although the pet you feed every couple of days is probably the best choice for me. But I'm going to be strong and hand them over to my nephews to be fascinated with.

Now I am going to go to a couple of thrift stores and see if I can't find a bigger aquarium. And some presents for people who probably do not want hermit crabs.