“I think Clammy had a baby!” exclaimed Athena, examining some pebbled-sized grains of sand in the water.

Over the Labor Day holiday weekend Miss A found an unusually large clam at the beach and brought it home. It wasn’t your cartoon variety clam with the wavy shell but a tad larger than a decent-sized Clams Casino style clam, with brown stripes on its shell, and you know kids – “Can we take it home?”

So we transferred the mollusk from a plastic bucket to a bigger plastic abode and when it stuck out what looked like a tongue (actually its “foot”) Clammy appeared as if it might actually be more entertaining than a pet rock. It even burrowed itself into the sand and spouted air bubbles. Proving itself to be a potentially worthy pet, we bought the newly acquired shellfish a small electric aerator and liquid plankton to enhance its quality of life — even going so far as trekking back to the beach the next day to get fresh seawater.

Hmmm, I thought, maybe that small dog the kiddies have been on us for lately would be easier (and no doubt cuter) to care for.

But I like that T, A & X aren’t traditional pet-owners. In the recent past, there’s been a shoebox with a caterpillar and they currently have two goldfish, a turtle named Crush and now Clammy (perhaps their choices are a a result of too much Spongebob?!).

Economically speaking, feeding time is much lighter on the checkbook – just a leaf here and a canister of fish flakes there. And maintenance is definitely less of a chore. Which reminds me, those little pellet-like droppings surrounding Clammy weren’t baby clams…