The Great Hermit Crab Toss 2012

As I was sitting in front of my computer yesterday, mourning the loss of an Internet connection, I came across some photos from my trip to Pensacola and the story behind them that I forgot to share with you.

The story involves crabs. Specifically hermit crabs.

Hermit crabs live inside of the coolest shells on the beach. Chances are, if you find an excellent shell it has a hermit crab in it. This happened to us several times while on vacation. And it didn't take long for the kids to start catching hermit crabs, run over to me on the beach (I was in a beach chair reading), toss the crab on the sand in my general direction and yell 'Keep an eye on this shell, please. It's got a hermit crab inside of it and it might crawl away'.

Umm … what? Put down my riveting autobiography ('Kris Jenner and All Things Kardashian') and keep an eye on a bunch of crabs? No, thank you. But I will totally fake out you kids by letting you think I'm keeping a close eye on those little critters when, in fact, I'm completely engrossed in the life and times of a Mrs. Bruce Jenner. Hey, I'm a mom. It's what I do.

Somehow even with me, ahem, watching the hermit crabs, we ended up with over fifty of them. Fifty! As in five zero. To quote the Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin, 'Crikey!'. And the general consensus amongst the children was that all fifty were coming home with us. It was the general consensus amongst the parents that all fifty hermit crabs were going to experience freedom when their sand bucket home was 'accidentally' turned on its side, effectively releasing the crabs from captivity.

Instead of merely overturning the bucket to let the hermit crabs go, I decided to make it a contest. A crab race back to the sea. The starting line:

If you look closely (and really, why wouldn't you want to look closely at a bunch of hermit crabs?) you can see legs or claws or tentacles or hooves or whatever emerging from a couple of shells. I picked those crabs to be the early favorites for winner.

I was wrong. Shortly after the legs or claws or tentacles or hooves or whatever emerged, they were retracted. And stayed there, inside the shell. For fifteen minutes we just stared at our starting line of hermit crabs. No amount of jumping up and down, hand clapping, cheering, or coaxing would get those things to come out of their respective shells and scurry towards the sea.

I even tried offering a cash prize, but apparently hermit crabs aren't motivated by a nice shiny quarter.

We didn't feel right just abandoning the crabs at the starting line, so the kids starting tossing them back into the water. And thus, the Great Hermit Crab Toss of 2012 was born.

See the big black splotchy thing on the right side of this next photo, just above the water line? That's not a crab. That's a windsurfer. See the small dot halfway between the windsurfer and my oldest? That's a crab.

I know what you're thinking: Man, those suckers can really fly. You are correct. I felt a little bad about throwing the crabs back into the Gulf, like hitting the water or the sandy bottom might cause them irreputable brain damage so they had to be on permanent disability or something. But then I realized that being tossed into the water really isn't all that much different from being tumbled about naturally by the waves.

Then I realized that being tossed back in to the sea was way better for the crabs than riding in a Honda for thirteen hours on the Interstate with a bunch of other crabs in a bucket filled with sand and sea water.

So I deem the Great Hermit Crab Toss of 2012 a success. Pin It Now!