Sole Survivor

We have an official winner of the Survivor: Hermit Crab Edition. It was official last Wednesday that Hulky won, outliving Pinky, Spidey, and Batman. After twelve months of rigorous play, and six months of utter neglect, Hulky remains the sole survivor. In a previous post I sang the praises of my gifted family members, while humbly not calling attention to my own special gifting. Well, I can keep silent no longer. It seems my gift would be the ability to keep small creatures alive for long periods of time. This gift was first uncovered when my sister gave us a beta fish known to us as Elijah Bluefish. Karyn’s fish lasted the traditional month or two. My fish lasted three years! Three years of cleaning a fish bowl and feeding a creature I never wanted in the first place. My mother, as you know, graciously gave my children hermit crabs. Karyn’s lived a traditional one to two months, mine lived two years (and that’s not counting how long they were alive at the pet store before we got them), and Hulky is still going strong. Well, now that I look at the preceding paragraph, I humbly realize that maybe I’m not so gifted at keeping small creatures alive, it’s really that Karyn (to whom I have been comparing my abilities all along) has a knack at killing them. Don’t tell her I said so.