Our new pets
Yesterday right around sundown, Vivi found a conch in the ocean. It bumped against her foot so she felt around under the water until she caught it. She was busy admiring the shell when the…snailish foot thingy slurped out into her palm. Like anyone with good sense, she panicked and flung it at her mother. I caught the thing and we laughed until we peed which was fine because we were in the ocean.
“Do you want to throw it back in?”
“NO! He’s my pet.”
“It’s a boy?”
“Uh-huh. His name is Conchy.”
She carried Conchy back up to our blanket and put him in my tote bag (on top of my phone…ew). When we walked up to the pool, she cradled him in her blue striped beach towel. I wouldn’t hold Conchy for her while she and her sister swam, so she built a little corral out of flip flops and came back to check on him every few minutes. I assured her that even if he did make a break for it, we could probably catch him before he made it back to the shoreline.
Conchy slept on the nightstand last night (hey, it’s a rental and the table has a glass top). He never once whined to be let outside or yowled at the door for more food in an already full bowl, so I already like him better than our other pets.
This morning at low tide, Sissy found another conch.
“Hey!” I said, “It’s Conchy’s brother!”
Vivi looked at me like I was an idiot. “Nooo. This one is a girl.”
“OK. What’s her name?”
“Nyquisha.”
Silly me.
Conchy and Nyquisha–a love story that’s gonna start stinking by Thursday.
Is it sad to hope I find love at the beach, based on the story of two gastropods???
Come out of your shell!
A pail of two conches… How adorable.
“Adorable” is not the adjective I had in mind, but sure…
A tale of two cities, a pail of two conches… Just a little joke. I think any pet you find and release soon after is adorable. Grasshoppers, toads, salamanders, as long as they don’t come in the house. I have to admit, we’ve never caught conches before.
That reminds me: I have to check the bleach bath
MURDERER!!!! J’accuse!!!
That got the funny bone that’s tied to my memory, which is sometimes a good thing and sometimes not. Amy and Wes found conch shells with hermit crabs in them one summer long ago at Jekyll and to avoid the stink factor we convinced them to put the bucket outside the sliding door. Unfortunately, we were on the second floor. During the night those suckers climbed out of the bucket, and like lemmings, it was off the ledge in search of the ocean I guess. A couple of them survived the dive, and for all I know those other hermit crabs are still searching, because they left the shells behind. Vivi at least had the decency and imagination to name them. How’s that bleach bath coming along?
I’m thinking of the bleach bath as kind of a Romeo and Juliet doom pact.
See, I told you. You eithermake me laugh or cry. That one was lol.
You are a brave woman! Nothiing is quite like the stink of a shell that still has an occupant.
Conchy and Nyquisha dissolved in a vortex of bleach. A romantic vortex of bleach.
At least they died together!
Mine have been spending time with cousins who are staying with us chasing down frogs and skinks. TOO. MUCH. FUN. They left them in the little “cage” thing after dark, and after they’d all had baths I thought to ask if anyone had let them all out. Nope. Of course not. So I went out battling the elements (well mostly mosquitoes that could tote my tail off) and let them go. Or at least I opened the door. I shook it so they’d know and maybe even fall out. I wasn’t having any die on my watch. Well at least I tried. The poor skink (who’s body issues were discussed often and loudly in my presence) didn’t make it. So they had a funeral. It made me cry. Well, not exactly for the skink–I’m sorry but I didn’t know him THAT well. But because it was all so very Roxaboxen-ish. Love this love story my friend!