Crusher: crayfish de el DIABLO!

some of you may know that xander has an aquarium with fish and creatures from the Delaware & Raritan Canal, which runs near our house. among the creatures is a largeish crayfish that we named "crusher".

crusher and i have not had a good relationship. in fact, i think he's evil. he freaks me out and stares at me with his beady eyes whenever i'm near the tank. i have no problems with the other, smaller crayfish. just crusher.

it all started the first night we set up the aquarium. the next morning, crusher was MIA. he made an escape attempt the FIRST NIGHT! we found him under alexander's bed, and alan put him back in the tank. we opted to cover the gap left by the filter with tinfoil.

over the past few months, crusher has made several escape attempts. the foil, however, usually foils him (puns rule) and we find him INSIDE the filter housing. he gets thrashy and feisty too, when you open the cover and gives you a good scare.

recently, he has taken to "hanging out" on the filter pipe that goes down into the water. he just stays there forever, looking nonchalant, as if to say, "don't mind me...no escape plotting here, just hanging out." alan makes sure to push him off with a pencil and back into the water.

alan and i have both said that if we don't watch him closely, i"n five years we will either be working for him, or dead by his hand." (thank you for the great quote, 30 rock!)

yesterday morning, the first thing i noticed when i went into alexander's room, was that crusher was, once again, missing. we were running late and did a quick search -- we picked everything up gingerly off of the floor, pushed the bed to the other side of the room, peered under the dresser, inside the filter, everything we could in our limited time. then we closed alexander's door, and blocked the crack underneath with a beanbag. by the time alan got home, crusher stil had not turned up. it's an uneasy feeling having a creepy crayfish loose in one's home, believe me!

anyway, after an hour of searching for crusher last night in alexander's room, hadley's room, bathroom, laundry room, and pile of laundry on the floor of the upstairs landing, we started searching our room. we didn't see how he could have possibly made it that far, but began the search nonetheless.


the good news is that we DID end up finding him.

the evil thing had survived the fall from the tank and off of the dresser and walked a grand total of 40 FEET! to end up in the back of our walk in closet INSIDE a pair of my favorite shoes. i believe he was lying in wait just to give me the fright of my life when i put on those shoes. and i ALMOST wore them yesterday! eeeeeeeek! (shudder!) along the way he bypassed several good crayfish hiding places. it creeps me out that he chose MY shoes, waaaay in the back of the closet. in order to get there, he had to find his way out from underneath the dresser in alexander's room, out the door, bypass the pile of clean laundry, cross the entire length of the landing, squeeze UNDER our closed bedroom doors (eeeeew! ) MAKE A RIGHT TURN, followed by ANOTHER RIGHT in order to get to said shoe, which has about a 4" chunky heel (which means it took effort to climb up in there), only to curl up and DIE in MY SHOE!!!! (do you sense the creepiness?) i tell you, the thing was pure evil.

many thanks to alexander, who was all for exploring my closet in the first place only to be told repeatedly by alan and myself that "he wouldn't have gone that far". i gotta hand it to the kid -- he thinks like a crayfish. i almost didn't search the closet, but decided i didn't like the idea of a crayfish vanishing into the wilds of my home, so i took a flashlight and systematically peered into each and every shoe. i'm glad i did, or i would have had a very unpleasant surprise indeed.

alan removed him, cleaned out the inside of my shoe with a clorox wipe (at my insistence), and put him back in the tank. you see, last time we found him, though he APPEARED dead, he revived after an hour or two and was fine, although perhaps a bit more evil and more determined than he had previously been.

this morning, he was still most definitely dead, floating at the top of the tank. we scooped him out, dumped him in a trash bag (thank goodness it's garbage day) and said a few words: crusher, we'll miss you. you were a smart crayfish, and good at escaping." (i left out all the bits about being the crayfish of the devil spawned from hell itself -- i figured i could at least try to say something nice). alexander added "good-bye crusher, i'll miss you". it might be appropriate to end this tale with "rest in peace", but i say "good riddance to bad crayfish". i may never wear those shoes again.