The saga continues..

When we woke up this morning the force was no longer with Luke Sandwalker. Our luck with hermit crabs seems to be getting worse fast. This one lasted a whopping 12 hours. We checked it all day. Didn't move. The boys handled this loss very well. My 10 year old, who has inherited his fathers incredible sense of sarcasm, said they should not be called "hermit crabs" they should be called "hermit crap". Last night when we were getting ready for bed the 5 yr. old looked at the new beautiful pets and said " so how long are these going to last?" If only I knew then what I know now. I could have prepared her. Two crabs in less than 24 hours. Is there any way to prepare for that?
When we went to church tonight we discovered that we were not the only ones to suffer this week. Another child's hermit crab had died. Because these fine animals come with a 14 day money back guarantee or exchange, we were able to trade Princess for a new crab. Not because we(me) wanted more but because they had already traded one in. The little girl whose crab was was replaced was not there tonight. We got her crab because they didn't have anything else to do with it. So now we must take Princess from her place of burial back to church so she can be exchanged. Something about all of that just sounds wrong. Now we are back to having 2 live hermit crabs. One for the boys and one for the girls. The boys decided to keep the bigger one formerly known as Sandy and change its name to Luke Sandwalker ( when you find a good name you should stick with it). I guess this shows that they don't have attachment issues. The newest crab( is it bad when you have to distinguish "new" by hourly increments?) is now just Shortcake instead of Sandy Shortcake. The original Luke is going to be taken back from whence it came to make good on the money back guarantee. They have been told that these are the last ones we will get. As much trouble as these have been they are actually pretty interesting. So the few hours combined that they have all been alive have been a good science lesson.

One of many lessons learned from all of this: Be cautious when buying animals with 14 day money back guarantee or even exchange.

Stay tuned for the continuing story. Hopefully the next part will be be much more positive.