Mr. Pinchy bites it.
Crab dies of loneliness.

The last year we lived in Chicago Mr. P and I had a series of fish tanks. Well, I had a tiny 5-gallon tank, Mr. P had three to four giant tanks. Two of Mr. P�s impulse buys included a small fiddler crab with a huge claw and a garden-variety crawdad. Both met grisly ends.

Victim One.
Crab, as he was called, lived in a large tank of primarily South American fresh water fish. Crab was a bit of a jerk, especially to the ghost knife, a strange nocturnal fish that lived in a cave and could give off a mild electrical shock when pissed off. The first time I thought Crab was dead was the morning I found his claw in front of Ghost Knife�s cave. It was obvious he�d finally pushed Ghost Knife too far and got what he deserved, he was always trying to pinch him or chase him out of the cave. But no, Crab was fine just down one claw, which he miraculously grew back in about a month, a narrow escape. When his new claw grew back he started to wave it in the air like he just didn�t care, desperately trying to attract any hot female crabs in the vicinity. He�d do it day after day and sometimes I�d feel sorry for his plight and other days it was much funnier to taunt him with shouts of �hey ladies�. It became known as the Hey Ladies dance. It was pretty pathetic. He built a little pebbly lair and everything, still no ladies.

Months passed and Crab drifted in and out of sight, sometimes waving, sometimes climbing and hiding behind rocks. Crab was solid entertainment, he could shed a shell like no one�s business leaving behind a hollow carbon copy of himself, he could grow limbs back when he felt like it. I was always curious to see what he'd do next. Then came the day when we learned Crab�s fate. Our big alley cat wasn�t interested in chasing and killing any of his toys, he was mostly trying to crawl under the couch. It took awhile to realize he had something special, Crab. We can only hope that Crab died of dehydration after leaving the tank to find female companionship before the cat got to him because just about nothing is as bad as dying at the hands of a cat.

Except:

Victim Two.
Mr. Pinchy, a common crawdad, was purchase for $1.99 since he was pretty much bait. Mr. Pinchy had at one point lived in almost all of the tanks. But he just wasn�t a good neighbor, he�d try to eat his tank mates and he�d dig boroughs in everything.

In a large, dark tank Mr. P was keeping a nasty fish called a polypterus. A polypterus is a rope-like prehistoric fish with little spiky dorsal fins running down its back, a rudimentary lung that allows it to breath air on land and little fin-shaped feet to squish around on, oh and they can grow to two feet or more. And it had one huge mouth. I didn�t much care for Polypterus.

One day, in a flurry of consolidation, Mr. P decided to put all the mean, evil fish and crustaceans together in sort of one badass aquatic neighborhood. So Mr. Pinchy entered the world of Polypterus and for awhile it looked like it would just be a series of stand-offs to see who got the best part of the wood and mud cave. Until Polypterus had enough. I wasn�t there for it but evidently Polypterus curled up like spring and grabbed Pinchy by the face. He went into an alligator-style death roll and proceed to rip Pinchy into bite-sized pieces. That pretty much put an end to Polypterus� career as a house pet. The whole violent attack and the walking on land thing put us both at attention. He went back to the fish store the next day. I was still cleaning out bits of Signore Pinchy shell when we had to dismantled the tank during the move months later.