Bringing Critters to Show in Tell

Today was Johnny's first show and tell.

After school yesterday, he asked his teacher if he could bring his hermit crabs.

"Their container has handles," he said, as if that would be the only qualification.

"Attention parents: Children may bring animals to show and tell if they can be carried around in a box with handles."

It wouldn't matter if they smelled, pinched, or tried to wriggle out of their shells and onto the floor?

Which they do.

But bringing them was okay with her. So I brought them at 11:10 a.m. and Johnny immediately launched into his presentation, reaching in to grab each one.

"This is Snap. I named him that because he bites me," he began.

"And this is Gray Green. You're okay Gray Green," he said.

G.G. is Johnny's favorite. And the crab really is sort of mild mannered. I often think he is a shell lieing on our floor among the other debris. And then he crawls toward me and I scream. Apparently, he has the run of the house.

The next hermit crab was hiding in a larger shell, which Johnny dumped onto his hand, watering it with smelly saltwater.

"This..." he stalled forgetting the name and making one up on the spot..." is...Castle because he looks like a castle."

Or whatever.

"And this," he said, "Is Bubble. Bubble lives in a wishing shell."

Wishing shells are shiny shells that you can wish on.

Bubble started climbing out of his shell and onto Johnny's hand.

Johnny lowered his voice and muttered grumpily, "Not now Bubble. I'm in a meeting."

It sounded straight out of a soap opera. I just hope he never utters the same words as a grown up.

Show and tell ended with Johnny walking around the room as kids told him, "I have a hermit crab," or "my hermit crab died" or "my hermit crab burried himself in the dirt."

But no one said, "My hermit crab interupts me during important meetings." Only Bubble does that.