The second attempt resulted in a successful hatch. Just as we'd given up on ever seeing the tiny little critters, close inspection revealed Topper, Sinker, Cinco, Tap, and Centro, and a couple others.
Aside: the names were mostly based on the location of a sea monkey at the moment it was being referenced. "Topper" was the sea monkey closest to the top, "Sinker" was the lowest, "Cinco" was the 5th one counted, and so on. They usually shifted enough that we never really needed the full 7 names.
We were enjoying our little sea monkey community, curious about the one with an extremely long tail, wondering how big they would grow.
Imagine my shock when I came into the kitchen for breakfast last week to discover an empty habitat. I have to admit that even as the grown adult in the room, I was fairly disappointed, and immediately began to go through stages of mourning. Denial, anger, loss. It was all there.
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| Exhibit A: Empty Habitat |
An explanation came when I called my husband at work. His reaction: "There were sea monkeys in there?" In efforts to find the source of a slightly swampy odor in the kitchen, he assumed it must be dried sea monkey corpses and stagnant water, and tossed the water. And, of course, the sea monkeys. Apparently we hadn't shared the daytime joys of watching Topper, Sinker, Cinco, Tap, and Centro with the night crew (my husband). Uh oh. My reaction: "Want to talk to Oscar?"
We remedied the whole situation today with a new pet. We made sure we picked one that was big enough for Dad to see. So far so good. Matt's lesson from all this is that when you're in a house with kids, never throw away mysterious containers of water. He tossed a tooth left out for the tooth fairy at his nephew's house a couple years ago. He spent 15 minutes digging through the food disposal drain until he found it. No such luck with the sea monkeys.
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| Exhibit B: Very Visible Pet Beta |
