Sea Monkeys

Possibly the MOST disapointing pet to own

Have you ever owned Sea Monkeys? I have. I must have been 11 when I fell for the deceptive advertisement for Sea Monkeys.

I had been looking at the ad for Sea Monkeys for quite a while. You know the one, it was always in the back of the comic book, had the cute Sea Monkey mom and Sea Monkey dad and the Sea Monkey kids. It made claims that they could do amazing things like dance and do tricks. I saved up my allowance one summer. I was going to by Sea Monkeys (or those freaky looking x-ray glasses)! I filled my name and address in the form and sent it off with my payment. My parents had warned me that Sea Monkeys were not all they were cracked up to be. HA! How could they know that? They were old parent people; they didn't know shit about anything. Besides Sea Monkeys could not possibly have been around when THEY were children. So with a stamp and my hard earned allowance, I sent off my form for the pets of my dreams. I took the longest 4-6 weeks of my 11 year old life. I must have checked the mail 3 times a day until I got my package. The packaging was promising with pictures of the happy Sea Monkey family, the instructions were simple - just add water and feed. I procured a large jar for my brand new wonderful SEA MONKEYS with dreams of a future dancing colony of happy Sea Monkeys. I followed the directions, water, Sea Monkeys, stir... and I watched. What the fuck? I don't see crap. I was a patient child though, I read the instructions again... and I waited. In a few days I could see what looked like a bunch of tad poles. I kept watching they grew a bit more. I played music for them... they didn't seem to notice or maybe they didn't like the music I was playing, I'm not really sure about that, but I do know that there was absolutely no dancing from my Sea Monkeys. Hmmm... Why is that? It clearly said on the advertisement that they could learn to dance. Maybe they needed to see actual dancing, so I danced for my Sea Monkeys, I sang for them, I swirled my finger around in the water in hopes that they might just need a little nudging onto the 'dance floor' (I think I just succeeded in making them dizzy). They continued to grow, but not much, I continued to watch, my dreams of Happy Sea Monkey colonies dissolving day by day. I started to wish I had gotten some tad poles, I like frogs and I know that the tad poles would be interest to watch until I had a container full of pet frogs. I started to resent that the Sea Monkeys were not happy or talented and most of all they were not tad poles. I started to hate the Sea Monkeys. I started ignoring the Sea Monkeys except when it was absolutely necessary - to feed them. One day while I was out being a kid I found something amazing - TAD POLES! I raced home for a container to put my NEW pet in. When I got home with my newest treasure I did exactly what every other 11 year old would have done, I put the tad poles into the Sea Monkey jar. I figured they would keep each other company, maybe the extremely cool tad poles would teach the extremely lame Sea Monkeys a thing or two. The next morning I checked on my Sea Monkey/Tad Pole tank. To my utter surprise there were a greatly diminished number of Sea Monkeys in the jar. I watched it wasn't as if there was any place for the Sea Monkeys to be hiding, so what could have happened. While I watch I got my answer as I watched a hungry tad pole gobble up one of the Sea Monkeys. Ooops... I wish someone had told me that Sea Monkeys and tad poles shouldn't share living quarters... or that Sea Monkeys are tasty food for growing tad poles. In utter guilt and embarrassment I took my jar of tad poles stuffed with Sea Monkeys back to where I got the tad poles and released them back into the wild. I had thought about keeping the tad poles but realized that my mother would kick my ass if she found out I had tad poles - something that would eventually become live frogs - in my bedroom. So that's my sad tale of Sea Monkey deception, it took about 4 weeks from the first drop of Sea Monkey eggs in the water to the tragic end with Sea Monkeys becoming tad pole chow. I went back to school a few weeks later, I never told of my Sea Monkey saga. I figured that I had been duped, bamboozled, taken and everyone else already knew about the utter lameness of Sea Monkeys. I never even told my sister what transpired with my Sea Monkeys - she had initially made a snotty comment about the Sea Monkeys when they arrived so why add to my torment by giving her absolute proof that I was totally gullible. But I learned... I learned a lesson about advertising - never ever buy anything off the back of a comic book and I learned about dreams and broken dreams and how you should never ever pin your dreams on a jar of stupid Sea Monkeys! Sheesh - I still slap myself in the head for being such an ignorant kid! How the hell did I ever make it to this age anyway? Sea Monkeys... I'd have been better of with a Chia Pet! (By the way I'd love a Mr. T Chia Pet... hehehe)