Foolish Things I’ve Done After Two Margaritas

Like most people, I enjoy a drink. And many people are prone to
foolish decisions after acouple of drinks -- which is why alcohol is a
key part of courtship. Many of us, in fact, likely owe our very lives
to alcohol -- but choose not to think about this detail.

Anyway -- I’m no exception which is why I fell so hard for a certain
gentleman many years ago who poured drinks and had an encyclopedic
knowledge of a certain Yugoslav filmmaker that I’m still enamoured of.
So, I failed to ask questions like 1) do you have a last name? 2) do
you have a home? 3) are you employed? (He could answer “yes” to just
one of the three.)

But we’re not here to talk about that. This is a parenting column.

One of my favorite evenings is to have two drinks and go to a good
bookstore. I did this at Rehoboth last weekend. The kids and I had
dinner at the Iguana Grill after a hard day at the beach. (HAH. No such thing.) I had two margaritas. And I dragged the poor innocents
to Browseabout Books, where I bought three books I’ve long wanted.
(Louise Erdrich’s “ShadowTag” starts slow but ends with pure poetry.)

We then wandered into a horrid sea shell store, a joint I love to go
to but never buy anything because they sell big chunks of coral which
is immoral and maybe illegal. But there’s beautiful shells, which I
stroke and admire but never buy because of the big chunks of coral.

They also sell hermit crabs.

Hermit crabs are little animals that use other animals’ shells as
homes. They’re free at the seashell shack, or whatever it’s called, if
you buy a $3.99 cage and 29 cents worth of food.

The whole thing is suspicious. Why are wild animals given away with a
$3.99 cage? Why are wild animals which cannot reproduce in captivity
(according to my limited research) being sold at all? Why do I find
them on the web described as “throwaway” pets?

But the children, tanned and tired, are captivated and come alive at
the sight of littleanimals that they can love. My argument about the
ethics of the hermit crab industry fall on nurturing ears. They can
rescue one hermit at least!

Daughter is very organized. But with Son I always win these arguments because he’s a ditz.

“Did you bring your money? Because if you don’t have money you can’t buy anything,” I say, smugly knowing that he never remembers to bring his money.

His face crumbles. He’s going to cry. Daughter hands him money --
“Here. I have $10.”

“You want hermit crabs?”  I say, horrified, seeing my check mate collapse.

She nods, her perfect chocolate brown eyes locked into mine.

And so we have three hermit crabs, initially named Sheldon, Sandy and Hermie. Then,Dude, Man and Bro and finally, Superman, Batman and Spider Man. (Superman is the liveliest,Batman is the shiest and Spider Man has a striped shell.)

And you know what? They’re cute little guys.

One morning, Superman was sitting on my hand and decided to come out of his shell. His pincers rolled out, harmlessly, followed by eyes at
the end of long stalks that looked like aninsect or a space alien.The
stalks moved confidently as he checked me out and then he sensed danger (a child’s hand?) and whipped back into his shell.

Unlike many of my margarita mistakes, I’m kind of in love with the little guy. 

Recipe for margarita: 1 part tequila, 1 part fresh squeezed lime juice
and 1 part Cointreau. Enjoy, but stay away from the Sea Shell Shack.