Kristina said, “Dad! You gotta write this down.”

I said, “I don’t remember it well enough.”

She said, “You remember it better than I do. I was only maybe about three or four and I can barely believe it.”

So I said, “I’ll try. And I’ll suppress your objections, like ‘No way, I couldn’t have done that,’ or ‘An ocean crab in the desert? What were we thinking?’ “

We were living in Riverside. I don’t know how we wound up with a crab.

I think somebody had the crab from the beach sixty miles away, and said, “I’m going out of town and I can’t take my crab with me. Here, you take it.”

So we had a crab. The water in the jar was murky and smelled bad. The crab had spent a lot of time in that jar before it was given to us, and we were concerned it wasn’t doing well. We tried to give it a good home. We filled the bathtub part way, and put some salt in the water so it would feel comfortable.

Kristina and the crab bonded. It was Kristina’s crab and she loved it and probably named it, though we can’t remember what. We probably called it Crabby.

We all cared about the crab and wanted it to have a good life. But we were worried that we might be putting too much salt in the water, or not enough. We knew it needed the ocean, so we called around, unsure if we should just throw it into the ocean, or if it needed special care, first.

It had to be somewhere it could be safe, like an ocean aquarium, but we couldn’t take it to the Long Beach Aquarium because that hadn’t been invented yet, nor had the Monterey Bay Aquarium. The Steinhart Aquarium in San Francisco was just too far to drive. But we called all the way to the Morro Bay Aquarium, which said, “Bring it on over.”

So we had a plan. And we decided we’d better hurry before it was too late. That, and because Shirley said, “We better take it today. We need to use our bathtub.”

So we got a bigger jar for Crabby, a clean jar we already had, it was probably one of those old-fashioned pickle jars you used to see in delicatessens. We put Crabby in the jar. I’m calling him “Crabby” so I can refer to him in person. And I’m saying he/him, though I have no idea.

We did it partly/largely for Kristina who loved every living thing. Shirley and I felt the same way.

So we put Crabby in the jar, drained the tub, and hit the road.

It’s about an hour to get to the coast at Santa Monica, then hours up the coast to Morro Bay.

I don’t remember if we stopped along the way to stretch our crab’s legs, or we just kept driving as fast as we could because time was running out. How long can a crab survive outside the desert?

We got to Morro Bay and the Aquarium by the water, and rushed inside.

They knew we were coming.

We went downstairs where they do the intake, and saw a lot of sea creatures through the glass walls all around who would be Crabby’s neighbors.

They took Crabby and dropped him in at the top and gave us back our empty jar.

We watched Crabby through the glass as he dropped down to the bottom, and they pointed him out. “There he is.”

We wanted to see the aquarium but it was too expensive and we never could have afforded to go there. They said, “Never mind. You brought us a crab from the desert. You can stay and look around.”

So we did, for awhile, and then got back in the car and drove all the way back to Riverside with an empty jar.

Our empty bathtub was waiting for us, and we used it.

After that, the house felt empty. Crabby was gone. But we still had our memories.

I wish I could remember them better.