Crabby

A few weeks ago the Lees spent a weekend at the beach. It was their last day and Ly and Alan were peacefully sitting in the sand, looking at the waves when suddenly Ly said "I want to go crabbing." And before Alan could mention what a bad idea he thought it was, he found himself leaving a Bait & Tackle store armed with chicken necks, rope, a net and a new found knowledge on crabbing.

As they drove to a recommended crabbing location, Alan tried to get the courage up to tell Ly that perhaps she wouldn't enjoy it very much. He did manage to mention how it might be really boring. However the look on her face was pure excitement as she babbled about having fresh crab and salmon for dinner.

Alan ignored the alarms that were going off in his head as he pulled into the parking lot.

The Maryland Blue Crab's Home Sweet Home

Well it turns out Ly is quite the accomplished crabber. Within 20 minutes she caught 5 crabs. She continued the adventure for another hour or so and had a grand total of at least a dozen crabs. Some were too little to take away so she threw them back and packed the rest in a little cooler on some ice.

To ensure people don't take little crabs home

During the drive home, Ly opened the cooler (which was at her feet, naturally) to "check" on her catch at least half a dozen times. Alan may or may not have mentioned that this was not necessary. When they were about 20 minutes away, the inevitable happened:

"Alan...."
"Yes?"
"Do you think we can throw the crabs back in that pond over there?"
"That's a freshwater pond."
"Oh."

Silence filled the car. Thoughts filled Alan's head of how he was going to handle this situation as Ly thought about death via extreme heat.

Once home Ly gently removed the crabs from their ice and placed them in various containers - to make sure they were alive. They were. She looked up at Alan hopefully and suggested letting them live in the bathtub. He sighed and told her that they would die anyway.

Needless to say, the job of actually killing the crabs went to Alan while Ly was in another room of the house. During dinner Ly didn't actually say or eat anything. Except to mention that she was now a vegetarian.

That lasted for a week before she broke down and ate some chicken.

RIP little crab