Hi, I’m Shari. I’ve been writing for several years now. I have completed three novels and a book of short stories and published none. Therefore, I can’t think of anything better to do than blog. I could be sending out query letters and story synopsis’s and what have you, but today I’d like to talk about Sea Monkey’s. Since I don’t have a picture of an actual Sea Monkey, I’ve used a rather unflattering shot of my dog Bodie who got stuck under the sofa the other day and I, being sensitive and kind, took a picture of him. I think he does look a bit like one from this angle.
When I was a kid I really wanted Sea Monkeys. I used to see the ads in the back of comic books and I asked Dad to give me the dollar and fifty cents, so that I could order them. He wouldn’t let me. He said that Sea Monkeys were a scam and that I’d be disappointed. Still, I persisted. I looked longingly at the ad, the little creature with his crown and scepter, next to him, his demure bride. Below in tiny, tiny print was a sentence that read: Warning, Illustration does not depict Artemia. What the heck does that mean? My little eleven year old brain pondered this and when I asked Dad, he said, “That means they aren’t worth buying.”
To this day, I still want my Sea Monkeys. I think that life is like that, sometimes you have to learn the hard way. It would have done me good to watch a bowl of smelly, brackish water teem with little maggot like creatures.
A more recent example of this was something that happened a couple of years ago. It was late at night and I was flipping around and came across Jewelry Television or JTV as the old ladies call it. Now, in the somber light of day, I would never watch such a program, but it was past midnight and my husband had gone to bed. I watched as the southern lady with very yellow hair paraded one bejeweled spectacle after another. Names like ‘Diamonique’ were being thrown about. I knew that what they were selling was crap, yes I knew it but something primal in me said, “Sea Monkeys, for women.” There was this ring. Rare green garnet and there were only 50,000 of them left. I wanted it and now that I’m a grown up, there is no one to stop me. No one to say, “You can’t buy that, it’s crap, you’ll regret it.”
So I did. I ordered one rare green garnet ring. It arrived a week later. I quickly unwrapped the package to find that the illustration did not depict Artemia at all. (Metaphorically speaking) The stones were not dark green but instead, a weak insipid pale color. The gold was so thin that the stones were barely hanging on for dear life. I put it on and a stone fell out. After sending it back at my expense, they did give me a credit, minus the original shipping and handling. It was a thirty dollar mistake and I’m not ashamed. Yes, I knew better but sometimes that’s just how it has to be.
Once I was in a supermarket and a little boy was crying. An exasperated mother was trying to get her boy to stop calm down. I listened in on the conversation. “Ethan, why did you take that?”
“I saw it, and I wanted it.”
Some things never change.
