We live in an apartment, I love not dealing with pet hair, and I have my hands full keeping up with my crazy three-and-a-half-year-old and getting my own hair washed. Pets are not for me right now, although I have loved and lost and my heart is kind of too tender right now emotionally to take care of a pet.
I lost my sweet Betta fish just three days before Liam was born, and I had watched the little thing suffer for a while before Gabe euthanized him for me, and it still hurts.
Liam loves animals, and I support his interest by talking about different species, reading about them, pretending to be them and slowly adding to his collection of animal toys. In fact, he has a set of felt animal finger puppets and we've gotten into the habit of, every time we play with them, they talk in either deep deep or high-pitched voices back and forth about where they live and what they eat. He knows we don't eat animals and we occasionally talk about the horses and pigs we'll keep for pets on our future farm.
Today while waiting for a set of prints at the Walmart photo lab, I tried to make a beeline past the pet food aisles, holding my breath as usual. I think one of the most disgusting things on this planet is the smell of hundreds of square feet of pet food.
But I was distracted by the new tanks of fish, which are cleaner and less jammed full of little fishes than the previous pet section Walmart tanks. I stopped and peered through the glass with Liam, pointing out bright colors, long fins and bulgy eyes. And then I saw them.
The fiddler crabs.
The cute little fiddler crabs with their asymmetrical claws and sideways underwater shuffle. I don't know why it happened but my heart grew three times in size. (You can call me the Pet Grinch.) I told Liam I want to have pet fiddler crabs with him someday. I told Gabe about it when he got home. I had fiddler crabs on the brain, which was weird because I am so anti-pet lately.
And then? You guys! Wonder Pets came on and it was the freaking Fiddler Crab on the Roof episode!
It's a sign! I'm destined for fiddler crabs, OBVIOUSLY.
