cheating

So my sister asked for my help on an English assignment about a year ago. She was supposed to write something about pets or interview someone about pets or something like that, and she didn't want to do the stereotypical cat or dog. She recalled that I had a somewhat "exotic" litter of pets at one time and asked me to type up a couple things I remembered about it. Well, I enjoyed writing it so much that I pretty much did the assignment for her. I never did ask if she just turned it in or if she re-typed it, so it doesn't really count as cheating, right?

Anyway, since I don't know what else to put on my blog, here it is with only a few changes:


How many pets are delivered through the mail in sealed foil pouches? I remember seeing them in the back of a magazine. It was probably an old issue of Boys Life, a magazine I read more faithfully than my brothers, who the subscription was for. They had such expressive eyes and animated faces. (the sea monkeys, not my brothers.) They were cute and playful, and I wanted them. Growing up with four siblings, I rarely had anything that was my own. I saved my allowance for a few weeks (a very rare occurrence) and mailed in the coupon. I was a very anxious eight year old for the next four to six weeks as I waited for my new pets to arrive. Finally, a small package was delivered with my name on it and I had my new, exciting pet: my sea monkeys!


“Pour the Eggs pouch into the aquarium and just add water!” Instant pets! There had to be a catch. I opened the foil pouch and saw some very small crystals. Crushed rock candy, perhaps. I poured them into my “aquarium”, which was a small plastic case about six inches high and four inches across, and filled it with water. Nothing happened. Evidently it took a few days to hatch. So, I did what any eight year old does when she is impatient with her pets. I poured in about half the food packet, hoping extra food would speed up the process. It didn’t, but then I was scared I was going to run out of food. My package only came with one egg packet and one small food packet. If they kept up the current rate of half a food packet a day, I was going to need more food, and fast! Luckily, my kit came with a book full of fun and useful items for my new friends.

I ordered several more food packets, of course. One picture showed my dear pets playing with fun toys, tossing them back and forth. I didn’t want them to be bored, so I got those too. Another showed my precious pets gasping for air. Evidently there wasn’t enough oxygen in the water for them; I needed to buy an aerator, and they needed it now! That went on the list as well. I sent off another coupon with more of my hard earned allowance and was, once again, very anxious for my package.

In the mean time, my little sea monkeys started to hatch. They didn’t look much like the picture. For one thing, they were tiny! Judging by all the pictures I saw I expected to be able to see their smiling faces, and watch them wave as they swam by. I could barely see them at all! And they didn’t do anything. They didn’t wave at me like in the pictures. They didn’t swim in cool patterns like I had imagined, they just swam from one side to the other.

By the time my next order arrived I was starting to get bored. Maybe their lethargy had to do with the lack of oxygen, or maybe it was because they didn’t have any fun toys to play with. This was going to fix it! My pouch of toys turned out to be small plastic beads that sank to the bottom and collected sludge. I don’t think I ever saw a sea monkey even swim close to one. The aerator looked like a turkey baster with a small cylindrical stone on the end. You would stick the stone in the water and squeeze the bulb, delivering life-giving oxygen to your dear sea monkeys. I’m fairly certain I killed more of them by accidentally sucking them through the stone than I saved.

I think I had my sea monkeys for about six weeks. Long enough to get bored with them, get excited for new toys, and then get bored again. I think it was my mother that eventually dumped it in the sink. The water had started to evaporate, leaving a crusty film all down the sides. The bottom was getting pretty sludgy, since I didn’t know how to clean it out without killing them, and I really wouldn’t have cleaned it if I did. C’mon, I was eight. They're lucky they lasted that long.