Shrimp

For my birthday Wendy got me an EcoSphere with five lively shrimp.
(There were more but Wendy loves sweet shrimp.)

Preserving their livelyhood has not been an easy task.
When Jen bought an EcoSphere for Terence I told everyone it was a snowglobe.
Karma caught up with me on my birthday when Saydra savagely grabbed my EcoSphere
almost tsunamied my shrimp.
Luckily her fast hands were no match for my fast mouth as I screamed,
“NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!”

I wanted to bring the shrimp to work so they could entertain me with shrimp
tricks but I was worried all the crowding and rushing to transfer trains would
stress the shrimp world too much.
I decided to stuff the shrimp into a lunch bag I got for donating blood
(which you should do if you haven’t done so already)
to inconspicuously carry my five little ones.
No one wants to steal or mess with a crappy lunch bag.
I carried my bag to work by holding it by the strap,
allowing the bag to swing freely to minimize inertial movement.
To my fellow commuters, I looked like I was really afraid of my lunch.
I also rotated the bag when making turns
to prevent the branch from smacking my shrimp.

Eventually I got to work.
I pulled out the whole package,
inspected it to make sure the shrimp were still alive.
They seemed very sleepy, probably from the cold.
Now came the task of removing the EcoSphere from the packaging.
This was not easy.
The package was a tube with two circular caps;
the top cap was sealed using tape,
while the bottom was permanently bonded to the tube.
Even after removing the tape, I could not remove the cap.
Eventually I got it open by squeezing the tube to pop the top.

Now I have to remove the EcoSphere while trying to minimize movement.
I could not just pull it out because my fingers could not slip between the
EcoSphere and the packaging to get a firm grip.
I could not remove the bottom cap and I had no scissors to cut the tube.
The only thing I could do is to turn their world upside down and slide
the EcoSphere out.
I really didn’t want to do this, but it was the only way.
So I slowly tilted the EcoSphere and gave the shrimp a rude awakening.
Nothing as refreshing as exercise first thing in the morning!

I put the shrimp right in front of my keyboard at work so I could look to them
for inspiration whenever I come upon a hard problem.
Many times they congregate right in front of me, all five of them,
as though they were having a meeting and spying on me.
At one point I thought I had lost a shrimp;
I saw three in the usually meeting spot, and one was out doing her daily chores.
I thought the shrimp mafia forced their fifth member to swim with the fishes,
but eventually I realized that it was just hiding itself behind another
shrimp’s butt, giving the illusion of a very long shrimp.

I wonder why the shrimp gather near me.
Is it because it is furthest away from my desktop,
which may generate enough heat for them to feel?
Is it because they are watching me watch them?
Is it because they are stealing my passwords?
I want to rotate their world
but I think they’ve done enough travelling today.

I am so easily amused.