Monkey sea, monkey do

Our daughter, who is six, has been asking us for sea monkeys. She’s not allowed to have a dog, you see, due to some asthma issues. But sea monkeys have very little dander, so they’re okay.

The problem was where to find sea monkeys. When we were kids growing up, sea monkey ads were ubiquitous. You’d see them at the back of your Richie Rich comic book or Cracked magazine. There they were, as I remember them: tiny aquatic aliens, with golf-ball antennae and tails, sipping martinis underwater and reclining on Barcaloungers. They were living it up, those sea monkeys. They always had smiles, and at least two sea monkey kids (a girl and boy, naturally) in tow. They lived near an underwater castle, and the ads promised they could perform a wide variety of tricks. What kid could resist sea monkeys?

In the ‘70s, we had lots of non-living, non-carbon-based pets. There were pet rocks, for instance, which had to be the most ingenious marketing ploy ever. Picture a guy living next to a quarry. Every day, his nice green lawn is littered with tiny pebbles spilling over from the quarry. He shakes his fist up at the workers: “Darn you, quarrymen! Darn you!”

Then he gets a sudden light bulb flash: “Hey, why not sell the little critters? Life gives you lemons, you make lemonade…”

I never had a pet rock, though I did have a mood ring. The ring was not alive, but it seemed alive, changing color with my fluctuating body temperature. Anything “interactive” seemed cool and futuristic in those sensory-deprived days. Imagine how excited we were about “Pong.”

Maybe part of the attraction of sea monkeys was the idea of creating alien life forms from scratch. Catholics won’t like this much, but growing sea monkeys turns little kids into little scientists, though it’s a science they scarcely understand. According to the instruction manual, the eggs of brine shrimp (for that’s what sea monkeys are) are preserved by “cryptobiosis” which keeps them in suspended animation until activated by warm, purified water. Then — voila! — “Instant Life!” Just like Dr. Frankenstein!

My own sea monkeys took a while to hatch. I’m not sure, but it felt like several weeks. They were in a little plastic aquarium with magnifying windows. The best — and in fact only — “trick” they ever accomplished was to swim in confused somersaults whenever I would creep up on them with a flashlight at night. Whee! Go, sea monkeys, go!

Nowadays, it turns out, sea monkey have loads of real estate options. I found our daughter’s starter kit at Toy Land, which has various aquarium habitats for sale. Your sea monkeys can swim above a simulated pirate wreck with a treasure chest; they can swim above a simulated lunar surface; they can swim in a simulated set from the TV show Friends. The possibilities are endless.

Alas, there are no Barcaloungers, despite what my memory insisted. No cocktails. No smiling sea monkey nuclear families. But the magic is still there.

Part of the marketing of sea monkeys has to do with their apparent friskiness. “So eager to please, they can even be trained!” reads the pamphlet. True, though fetching your newspaper seems unlikely. “Teach them to obey your commands like a pack of trained seals! Amaze your friends!” And best of all: “Don’t ever be lonely again!” Yes, before Tamogotchi, sea monkeys were the hottest pet substitutes going.

Sea monkeys are supposed to live for up to two years, though this will probably outlast most kids’ enthusiasm. To keep kids enthralled with sea monkeys, the makers offer a bunch of “comeback” items for sale, stuff like the Sea Show Projector Screen, the Electric Ocean View Showboat, and the Sea Medic Sea Monkey Emergency Kit, in case you need to go all E.R. on your new pets.

Then there’s a product called Sea Diamonds, which are apparently sea monkey beach toys. “Watch your sea monkeys have fun by tossing Sea Diamonds around like little beachballs!” the pamphlet reads. “They even climb up and ride them like little surfboards in order to get much-needed exercise!” I wasn’t aware that obesity was a problem for sea monkeys.

They even have a little plastic sea monkey water bulb that hangs from your kid’s wrist — it’s called an “Aqua Leash” — so that he or she can take the sea monkeys everywhere they go. How creepy is that?

None of our adult snarkiness had any effect on our daughter Isobel. She was excited as a can of bees about hatching her sea monkeys. She carefully added the water purifier (Packet #1) to the aquarium and waited anxiously for the next morning, when she could add the Sea Monkey Eggs (Packet #2). I don’t think even Santa Claus generated this level of pre-event buzz.

When they finally hatched, Isobel was in school. So Mom and Dad enjoyed the special nostalgic rush of watching tiny little white dots darting around in lukewarm water. They jittered around in the water like epileptic sperm, learning to swim. “Wow, I could watch this all day!” Therese announced. “Let’s call in sick from work!” I added.

Naturally, that first crack-like rush of sea monkey voyeurism wore off, and we did in fact head to work that day. The next day, our daughter reported on her own interaction with the sea monkeys.

“I didn’t know they’d be so tiny… They’re so cute… Maybe we can teach them tricks… I want to put them in the Aqua Leash… My classmate said she had sea monkeys before, but some of them are old now, like lolo sea monkeys… Does that mean they have little canes and walkers…?”

Of course, they didn’t look anything like the smiling creatures in the ads. But we knew that already. They looked like little aqua-friendly fleas. But they grew at a rapid pace. Within three days, you could see their tiny legs pawing at the water like frisky puppies. We watched as our daughter carefully added a spoonful of Sea Monkey Growth Food (Packet #3), which creates a layer of algae for the sea monkeys to eat. It may not be wholesome family fun, but it is scientific.

Despite the ads and come-ons, we knew the sea monkeys were unlikely to ever go “surfing” or toss around tiny beach balls in their aquarium habitat. There isn’t even an outside chance that they’ll one day grow up to be shrimp cocktails.

Doesn’t matter. The real magic was seeing our daughter get excited about something she’d never imagined before. Picking up a magnifying glass and exploring a new world. We’d pay to see that any day.