When being nice goes bad...

Posting by Derek

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you find someone or something in need of help AND you can actually help?

Tonight I was reminded of a time I tried to help a hermit crab that had ventured far from the ocean water. I was with Lena on our honeymoon. We were taking a late night stroll along a sidewalk... one of us saw the hermit crab. He was a good distance from the sand and even further from the water. Good distance in hermit crab walking distance that is.

Being the chivalrous guy I am, I decided to help the hermit crab. Nice, right? We're about 10-15 yards inside the wall between the sand and the sidewalk. The wall is 2-3 feet tall. The beach stretches pretty far (again, in hermit crab distance). I brave my intense fear of creatures with more than four legs and reach down to pick him up.

In retrospect, the nicest thing to do would have been to carry him to the wall and gently set him down in the sand. My fear may have gotten the best of my judgment as I decided to toss the hermit crab instead of gently setting him down. He has a protective shell, right? In my haste, I let go a little late (or maybe he held on too long!) and instead of a soft landing in the sand, he forcefully hit the wall.

Lena was in tears... laughing mostly (some sadness for the hermit crab) at the irony and my suspect decision making.

Well, once again, I found myself in a situation to help a creature. I must have learned from experience. She spotted a cricket in the house yesterday. I finally saw him out of the corner of my eye this evening. I grabbed an empty cookie tin and a magazine. I was able to cover him with the tin without crushing him. I even slid the magazine beneath the tin without injuring him. I decided to let him go outside of our 2nd story apartment. Once outside, I decided that letting him go upstairs would leave too great an opportunity to sneak back inside our place. He'd be better off on the ground level. I spied some bushes down below. That's be a good place for him to get his new start, yeah? I thought it would, so I turned the tin rightside up (and heard the cricket fall to the bottom of the tin) removed the magazine that had now become the "lid" and in one giant heave sent the cricket flying in the air to land one story below in the bush. As if the height wasn't bad enough, I heard him hit the sidewalk. I suppose he wasn't nearly as aerodynamic as I though. He has a pretty good skelton... I'm hoping he survived the flight.

Don't worry... I won't be nice to my daughter.