I Say Throw Him In A Pot With Rice And Spicy Sausage

I took Ava and Zach on a little field trip today, to the Perkiomen Creek, to hunt for little critters and have one of the naturalists from the Green Lane Nature Center describe what we caught.

Okay, first of all, you have to know that the term "Naturalist" cracks me up. If that is your job title, and you can say it with a straight face, just know that in my head I'm wetting my pants. When I hear naturalist, I'm going to assume that you are a nudist. In fact, I'm going to hope that you are a nudist, because at least then you'd be entertaining to me.

Today, there were two of them, a man and a woman. The woman was wearing an "ERACISM, true freedom only comes when you free your mind" tee-shirt and talking about yoga (big surprise, right??), and they were both wearing Jesus shoes.

The kids ended up catching a lot of crayfish. There were probably 15 of them in this little tub of water. The two naturalists had a conversation that I overheard, while the kids were still in the water. This is how it went:

Naturalist #1: Oh wow, this one looks like it's having a little trouble. See how it's left claw isn't moving as fast as it's right one?

Naturalist #2: Yes, I do see that. Maybe trauma of some sort?

Naturalist #1: Yes, probably neurological damage. Come on, little guy...

Naturalist #2: What should we do with that one? He certainly isn't going to heal in this little tub.

Naturalist #1: Well, we could throw him back into the water to die, so that some fish can find him and gobble him up, and the circle of life could continue.

Naturalist #2: Yes, that's a good idea. We certainly don't want to watch him die.


First of all, I wanted to say "Do you realize you just said "circle of life" with a straight face....?"

But what I couldn't figure out, how traumatising can it be to watch a crayfish die? What happens, does it start convulsing and clutching it's neck with it's little claws? Do it's eyes bug out and stare at you with a look of despair? Do it's claws start tapping out HELP ME in morse code??

I think it just stops moving.

We certainly don't want to see that. Nightmares might abound. You might never recover. Ava might end up on some psychologists couch saying "I don't know, I just can't get over seeing that crayfish just stop moving, when I was 5..."