Following a recent visit to the Melbourne Aquarium, I had an idea about raising an army of Sea Monkeys™, with a view to world domination. Then I remembered how crap they are.

When I was a kid, I hankered after my very own Sea Monkey Circus in the same way I wanted every piece of chicanery on offer at Jokeworld in Sandy Bay Road: itching powder, fake plastic vomit, soap-flavoured lollies, and an exploding cigarette to sneak into Dad’s pack of Stuyvesants as a subtle hint that smoking was health hazard. My cousins and I would save our pocket money up for each kit, trading our trickster resources among ourselves. Of course, we all knew which current prank was in the offing, and were on the lookout for the soap that turned your hands black or the whoopee cushion hidden in the depths of the couch. But being on alert was half the fun, really. Actually, the big fun was to be had by catching out the olds. Curiously enough, our collective parents were rather immune to our ministrations. I’m sure my mother never sneezed once from the brown powder I sprinkled in her handkerchief drawer. The cartoon chap on the sachet would have you believe that a person’s head would instantly swell to twice its usual size, turn a fetching shade of crimson, then explode with the ferocity of a force nine gale. I hid under the bed with my cousins, stifling giggles and waiting for our hapless victim. My mother merely shook out her hankie and wondered aloud how scraps of Dad’s tobacco had made it into the dresser. Then she calmly blew her nose, and tucked the hankie into her sleeve.

Most of the practical jokes we tried were similarly disappointing. It didn’t stop us trying new ones, though. Past failures were instantly forgotten as we tried each successive experiment. The problem was, of course, that we only had access to the limited range on offer in Hobart. Unless you were a Pentagon operative or something, there was no such thing as the internet, never mind online shopping. No-one had credit cards. The Pinnacle of Pranks, in our wide-eyed opinion, was the remarkable catalogue on the back cover of the Archie comics. They were the proverbial cherry-bomb, the Lollygobble home of Whizzbangery, the United States. Of America, that is. Some factory in Ohio was where the serious jokes were. While there was considerable attraction in the concept of joy buzzers and silly putty, even our guileless eight year old selves had sense enough to know that if X-Ray glasses were really as effective as they said, they’d probably use them as a cheap alternative to the expense of running a radiography department at the Royal.

These trifles were small fry in comparison to the ad that spread out over half a page, in glorious four-colour print: the smiling family of manic Sea Monkeys. These looked like the most fun pets in the universe. Never mind cats or dogs, and bugger trying to train a goldfish, these little folks would swing from an underwater trapeze, given the right circumstances and adequate training. Sea Monkeys could not be obtained from Jokeworld; they were too magical for that dusty little place*. No, sir. If I was going to be the envy of the pet-owning set at school, I’d have to become an importation entrepreneur. So I tried posting $AU2.50, in cash, to the nominated address for my packet of Sea Monkey fun. It didn’t occur to me at the time that the currency was wrong and that the comics in my possession were at least fifteen years old. I should’ve been tipped off by the fact that they’d already been recycled twice through the Adventure Bookshop, but when you’re eight, you don’t really have any grasp of the world having existed before your own auspicious arrival in it. I waited the prescribed six to eight weeks for my Sea Monkey Circus. I waited three months. I waited four. Each day, the letterbox was dismally empty, bar all those boring looking letters addressed to Mum and Dad. My spirits sank as it became apparent that my Sea Monkeys were never going to enjoy their new home in the pristine tap waters of southern Tasmania.

I did, however, get my very own Sea Monkey kit at the Smithsonian Institute, of all places, at the ripe old age of 11. Clearly, the raising of Sea Monkeys must be educational if the Smithsonian is on board. Mind you, their gift shop also did a lucrative line in freeze dried ice cream – as eaten by astronauts. Allegedly. I don’t know what the hell Buzz Aldrin was thinking, but I’m pretty sure he’d agree that dehydrated neapolitan is a poor substitute for the real Peters. I was as keen as mustard to tear into my coveted Sea Monkey Circus, but as we were traveling from Washington DC, to New York, to Los Angeles, to Honolulu, to Sydney, to Hobart, it seemed prudent to leave the shrinkwrap plastic alone. I was incredibly restrained. I figured it would count towards next year’s Lenten sacrifices. Not that I held any kind of true spiritual regard for Lent, but I did go to a Catholic School, and some charade of forfeit was required. I usually just made things up. Similarly, when Confession was mandatory, I concocted tales from the tedious to the scandalous while I waited my turn in the mouldy vestibule at the onsite convent. If hell exists, I’m going straight there, if only for lying under oath to a priest. They’ve only got themselves to blame, though. I was obliged to make my first confession a month before my seventh birthday. What kid of that age has any real sins to confess? I also think there is something quite unsavoury about forcing children into a room alone with a graying man with the express purpose of telling him about all the naughty things they’ve done. By the time I had anything interesting and true with which to entertain the priest, I had quit going. Oh strike me down now, I’m well on my way to excommunication anyway. That’s beside the point. In my peculiar system of weights and measures, keeping the lid on the Sea Monkeys for a few weeks had to be worth at least a couple of Hail Marys and a Glory Be. Maybe even in Latin.

I set up my Sea Monkey world o’ fun when I got back to Hobart, but the little feckers basically looked like overgrown lice in lukewarm water. They showed little interest in being trained to leap elegantly through hoops. The ads implied that they love to build sandcastles and apply false eyelashes. Not true. There is also the myth that Sea Monkeys have a much greater sense of family and social responsibility than the countless species of fish that simply spew a volcanic array of gametes into the water at random, and hope that some offspring will result**. I never once saw the Daddy Sea Monkey reading a Narnia book to the kids, and Mummy Sea Monkey rarely kicked a footy round with the tots either. In fact, none of the clan seemed to pay much attention to one another at all, unless they happened to collide. Or take a a cannabalistic fancy to their neighbour.

However, every consumer cloud has a silver lining. Had I not made the foray into Sea Monkey patronage, I may never have learned about ovoviviparity, because there aren’t many species that do that. So I suppose these venerated institutions of scientific education taught me a thing or two after all. That, and caveat emptor.

Footnotes:

* Jokeworld went out of business a very long time ago, and the site is now occupied by the Tasmanian Fishing Industry Council. They don’t stock Sea Monkeys either. I suppose they are regarded as a potential threat to the native marine life in much the same way that two dozen rabbits ravaged the nation for the edification of some aristocratic hunter back in the 18-whatevers.

**That’s one of the reasons I found Finding Nemo so egregiously unconvincing: most fish couldn’t even pick their coparent out of a lineup, never mind their offspring. The idea that any would have such an intense position of loyalty to the memory of the dead wife and the mislaid prepubescent son is utterly preposterous. Dory is a far more convincing representation of the piscine psyche, with her comical attention span and her lackadaisical outlook on life. Plus Ellen Degeneres is a lot less annoying than Albert Brooks.

Links:

Here’s the official site, for your leisurely perusal. http://www.sea-monkeys.com/
For the freaky enthusiasts’ perspective: http://www.seamonkeymania.com/