When I was in third grade, it seemed like everybody had pets. My friends had animals such as cats, dogs, rodents, snakes and lizards. I wanted a pet, and my brother and sister wanted pets, too. Well, our family decided fish would be the easiest to take care of.

At the pet store, we realized all of the tank maintenance required would be a bit too much, so we decided to buy a Sea Monkey Instant Life© Kit. As soon as we got home, we put the sea monkey eggs in their soda can sized container with some water. In a few days, there were tiny black dots with clear tails floating around the tank. Sea monkeys are super miniature, transparent baby brine shrimp, and the babies just float around and eat.

We probably fed them way more than we needed to because it was so fun to watch them “fight” over the food. They’d bump into each other and spin frantically in circles and then wolf down food specks the size of a grain of sand. We invited all our friends over to watch our special pets, but they never got to be full-grown brine shrimp.

We had a few friends over and we were watching the sea monkeys swim when the tank was suddenly knocked over. In slow motion, we watched, helpless, as the tank fell to the floor. The sea monkeys were gone, but we desperately tried to scoop them back into their tank.

While we all mourned the loss of our pets, they never received a proper burial, as our mom had to vacuum them up from the carpet. Though our pets didn’t last long, we did learn about responsibility and how much fun a pet, no matter how simple, can be. We will always remember our first and only pet, our sea monkeys.