People who know me know I blame sea monkeys for a lot of things. I sort of see my life as the innocence before the sea monkeys and the jaded post-sea monkeys child I became.
We all saw these beautiful sea monkey adverts in our Richy Rich comic books. Look at that family! The jolly little baby, the fashionable mother. And as the advert clearly says they are "so eager to please, can even be trained". Yeah. Right.
We all bought them. They arrived as a powder. A powder. Nothing coming from a powder smiles. But still I had hope, it WAS pre-jaded child time so I was willing to give them a chance, so I mixed it all together, loosely following the instructions. And nothing happened. No little crowned family appeared. There was no smiling. There would be no tricks. Later I learned they were brine shrimp. Mine never even became brine shrimp. They were a stinky bowl of water with a layer of brownish scum on top which ended up flushed down the toilet.
And now I hear that the guy who "invented" sea monkeys, Harold von Braunhut was a white supremacist and the money we all forked out to buy the brine shrimp that ruined our childhoods was used to buy guns for the KKK. He was also a proud anti-Semite though he was apparently Jewish. Gave bucks to the Aryan Nation too. Great. Really great. As if this whole sea monkey incident was not traumatic enough.
Where I come from they were called "Sea Horses". I don't know if they were made and sold by the same man but I reckon they were. When I got mine they looked like sea horses but obviously they didn't come alive after they were "watered". I don't remember much more. It is too bad I gave my 25 cents to such a man.
ReplyDeleteYou are kidding me! I had no idea he was a white supremacist. I had sea monkeys that I ordered from the back of Archie comics that never amounted to anything. However, my son was given some from the science shop when he was about 6 and they turned into these things that looked like mosquito larvae. Sadly, they had no crowns or sceptres. They all disappeared after about four days leaving behind a smelly scum. Much like white supremacist rhetoric, really.
ReplyDeleteGreat story!
ooooh, ooooh, sea monkeys were after my time. In my pre-jaded child time the deal was one square inch of actual land in the Yukon. Sargeant Preston of the Yukon, the red-suited mountie offered us kids a square inch of land in the Yukon. Why, it might even be part of a gold strike. ....just 25¢ for an adventure in the wild and an actual 'deed' to the land.
ReplyDeleteWonder just where the quarters went! Hate to find out they funded something so adverse as sea monkey money.
Oh No!!!! Wow, I really remember those ads in our Archie comics, but being in Africa, before the days of online shopping, had to just sit and imagine those Sea Monkeys with great longing! Another childhood illusion shattered...
ReplyDeleteGreat post and pics about the book launch, and love your new bookshelf and tomatoes, too..
Karen if you're passing by Mahalapye give me a shout, I'm currently picking a bucket of tomatoes every two days and me and the last Giant Teenager are making no headway.
ReplyDeleteBonita- I can't believe that story- what a scam! At least we got our powder.
Selma- I know, it is shocking.