Bucket of trouble

The night before we left Florida we took a long walk along the beach and found a group of kids catching crabs. It’s something we used to do as a family in my childhood, although we’d always let them go. But I’m permanently scarred by one instance when my sister’s husband (then her boyfriend) reached out to grab a crab with his net and sliced the poor creature in half. I was so upset about it, so inconsolable, that my family promised (lied to) me that the crab had survived and had grown his body back. And I believed them because I wanted so badly for it to be true. Because crabs have feelings, too.