Pinchy Dies...

I spoil the ending with the title, but I bought a fiddler crab for our fish tank because when I saw them in the store, it cracked me up watching them scuttle around the bottom of the tank, the males with one over sized claw and one tiny claw, using the tiny claw to feed themselves and the over sized claw to attract females. Carter and I were looking at the crabs when one of them started to do the robot! It was like he was hearing some music from somewhere unknown and dancing to it by jerking his claws in opposite directions. I knew then that I was going to be the proud owner of a fiddler crab. So we bought Pinchy for $3.09 at Pet smart. Carter gave him his name. It wasn't until we got him home and I was reading up on them, that I learned that they needed access to oxygen for them to live longer, which our tank did not have. But Pinchy was a smart crab and periodically would climb up the floating plants onto the thermometer or the oxygen tubes and up to the top of the tank for air. Once he even was sitting on top of the tank on the outside when my wife came to feed the fish late one afternoon. She called me in a panic at my work and cried "Pinchy is staring at me!" But that is another story for another day.

So I go downstairs this morning with our oldest son who is 3 1/2 and I notice our fiddler crab in our fish tank is looking sideways and sort of hanging there, not moving. Thinking that this will be another opportune moment to teach my son about death and to not be afraid of it when he encounters it in his life (which is inevitable), I point out (probably in the wrong way) "Oh No. It looks like Pinchy died." (Saying "Oh No" sends a message of dread and alarm, which I realize after it leaves my mouth. That was my first thought in my head, not too much emotion with the fact the crab had died, mostly annoyance at now having to figure out what to do with a crab body. You can't flush those can you? Bury them in the backyard? If I were still in Idaho, maybe, but out here you need a license to do anything and I didn't want to pay $200 for a pet burial license or whatever it may be, so I guess I'll have to figure it out tonight after work.) (Update, Pinchy was given the "throw-into-the-woods" burial. I'm sure there are plenty of stray animals that would love a nice crab meal.) My son then repeats after me "Pinchy died?"

"Yeah, but it's okay! He's now in heaven with Heavenly Father and he's happy!"

I'm good, I think to myself as I tell him this. Because that is just the thing you should tell your 3 1/2 year old and in fact, it's the same thing my parents probably told me at that age. You can't well go into detail about how he might be in Crab spirit prison because he misbehaved and ate some of our fish in the fish tank. But I guess that's not cause for him to be dubbed a "wicked" crab because we too eat fish, though for him its close to passing into the realms of cannibalism. Or I don't explain that he's not quite yet in Heaven, but at peace in Crab paradise, if he was judged to be a righteous crab, awaiting the resurrection. Do we really know what happens to animals after they die? Are all animals righteous and go to heaven? I worked on a dairy farm for 4 years and all animals righteous is a debatable statement. Well I hadn't studied up on it enough so I made do with the limited knowledge I had.


"Why did Pinchy die?" he asks. I can't perform a crab biopsy so I tell him that he was old. I'm an accountant so all I can do is count Pinchy's legs and know that my pocketbook is now $3.09 lighter. But $3.09 for all of the entertainment he gave us, well worth it. Fiddler crabs get 3 out of 4 stars. May pinchy have air access in that great fish tank in the sky.