HCA: Hermit Crab Association

LOL
so the other day a freind and i were talking, and i brought it up that we had chicks and were planning to get lots of eggs and give them to her and neighbors:
her-ewwwwwww i would never eat one of your eggs!
me:why not?
her:because they came out of a chickens BUTT!
me: were do you think store baught eggs come from?
her:i dunno, but not from chickens!
me:*walks away shaking head:
this wasntt crabs, but have people said dumb things about your crabs and other animals?

I mostly get a lot of weird looks or "eeewww" about the crabs and the geckos. Not much else other then the usual crab jokes.

A couple of years ago I ran into a girl I went to high school with that had also worked with me and my husband at one point in time. He made a big deal about telling her I had pet roaches (something he was getting great enjoyment out of sharing since they were still fairly new), and she sort of froze and the first thing out of her mouth was "Like, in cages?" I so wanted to answer her back "Nope, I keep them in my kitchen cabinets" but instead I bit my tongue and nodded. I realize it was an odd thing to hear, but I was totally not expecting that response from her!

My grandpa is weird about my crabs. Says they are good for nothing and he can't understand why I would want a pet like that. He and my gram have 5 cats and a horrible little havanese dog. At least I don't have to clean up crab barf from my carpet, or change a litter box, or worry about my crabs attacking people or barking constantly. My crabs are not as "good for nothing" as their pets! That's for sure!

I get the obvious, 'They have a cream for that' jokes.
But I also have people get grossed out and make sure to tell me "ewww"
Someone once asked me if I ate them, I looked them dead in the eyes and said, 'Everyday'.
People get grossed out over my mealworms, my superworms, my roaches, my tarantula, my gecko, my rats... Even my fish.
There are some dumb(For lack of a better term) people in the CSRA of GA where I live

Mostly a lot of "ewwwww!!" And people questioning my pet choices. I have 2 cats and they're so much more high maintenance than my geckos and tarantulas and crabs and snake combined.

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My dad asked me, "Why do you want hermit crabs? What do you do with them?" This is coming from a man that spends hours on the weekends cleaning his fish tank.

Ahahah my boyfriend asked me what I do with them and he looked so confused when I was like, "I watch them."

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I should start telling people I'm training them for my secret agent army.

Scarlz wrote:I should start telling people I'm training them for my secret agent army.

I love it. They could wear little suits, or some of them could have little parachutes to infiltrate enemy territory, and they would need fancy little cars, and... I am thinking faaar too much about this

Generally people think I am weird for having so many pets. I have 4 cats, 4 rats, 5 degus, 3 ferrets, 2 bunnies, 2 chinchillas, currently one guinea pig (had four total, others passed from old age, will be getting more once we have our new cage built), a hamster, a hedgehog, several spiny mice (I messed up while sexing them, ended up with a male and a female, and they reproduced, so we won't be keeping all of them), and by the time I have named off all of these critters I usually just don't even tell people about the hermit crabs or the fish. In fact, sometimes I don't mention the degus or spiny mice just so I don't have to explain what a degu or a spiny mouse is.

My boyfriend and I love our pets dearly, though, and they are everything to us. When people question, I say, "We have furry children, not human children." That weirds them out enough that they stop asking, generally, but it's true - the critters are like our kids. Some people just have a lot of kids. We will never take in more than we can effectively care for. All of our critters receive excellent care, lots of love, and very high quality nutrition (raw feeding for the cats, ferrets, and hedgehog, the best foods on the market for the buns, chins, rats, and pigs plus fresh greens, species appropriate diet for the degus, homemade mix for spiny mice, and my own recipies for the crabs).

So yeah, people might think we are weird, but who cares? We are happy, and so are our critters. That's what matters in the end.

People don't understand. .. "What do they do"?

I normally respond that they are relaxing like watching a fish tank but far more entertaining.

I have a friend who has a pet muntjac deer. He's about the same size as my dog. .. and a real hoot.

I LOVE strange pets!

This whole post is making me giggle!

Most of my family just stares at my tank with this look of horrified fascination...and I get the "what do you do with them" question a lot too! I usually just say they're fun to watch, and decorating the tank is something I really enjoy. I try explaining that I want to give them the care that they need, which is different than what the majority of people think, but that usually doesn't sink in >.<

Usually people don't get it because they picture a crab in a critter carrier like they've seen at the mall kiosk. People also say to me "ew don't they smell". That one is common, even my mom said that. I now carry a short video on my phone of my crabitat and once most people see that they change their tune. If I can show someone in person it's even better. I describe it a lot like people enjoy fish...except it's true they are much more fun to watch.


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I haven't had a ton of things said like this.
I know this isn't really something dumb someone said about my tank but it has kinda become a joke between me and by friend.
this conversation was over email...
me:GUESS WHAT!!!??
her:what
me: (because I'm like this) I'm not telling
(skip ahead a few email to when I finally tell her that I'm getting glasses. Why that's so exciting is because she has glasses and people think we are twins so glasses would make people more confused)
her: I know now (what the GUESS WHAAT!!!?? was all about) I thought you might me getting hermit crab shells.


I sent another email about something idk
anyway she said i thought something or hermitcrab shells!!

yeah that was a bad explanation!

I was with another friends telling her about a tank idea she said "what happens when you don't have those crabs anymore??"

My mother has de-evolved from actually watching the hermits when she would come over to completely avoiding that area of the house and just giving "The Look" down her nose and saying that "they look like big spiders". Sigh. Had to sit her on the far side of the diner table last weekend so she couldn't see them. (I don't think she realized there were fiddler crabs in the tank over her shoulder, thank heavens. THOSE things remind ME of fast spiders! )

I finally tried to tell her we got a snake. She gave me the "The Look", said only "What are going to do with a snake?" and then changed the conversation completely and wouldn't take about him after that. I don't think she's afraid or has issues with snakes, but I don't think I've ever seen her around one before. I know she hated this one kid's roommate in college because he had a python and tarantula and would keep the room at 90 degrees and I guess it stunk because he never cleaned up after the snake. I think that completely soured her to snake owners. I'm hoping sometime this year she'll actually ask about Stanley.