“I’m so much cooler than all you losers,” Riko scoffed. Two beady eyes twitched atop his antennae.

“You arrogant decapod!” seethed Lautaro. “All you ever talk about is how much better than us you think you are.”

Riko picked at a small anemone stuck to his shell. “True, but I am better than all of you. How many other crabs have I been with just this month? My numbers are astounding.”

“We’re all sexual dimorphs, you ignorant soft-shell,” Lautaro spat. “You just have no standards.”

Riko had already drifted off, his eye stalks bending around to watch a shiny blue crab in the distance.

“Gotta run, fellas,” he said. “Got to keep the numbers up!”

* * *

With that, Riko crawled away. He followed the shiny blue crab straight into a large black cage. There was no door and no lock, so he assumed there was no problem. Two days later, Riko had moved from the black cage to a silver buffet tray, and was the featured item at Cap’n Bob’s Seafood Emporium.

Moral: Keep your pereiopods in your pants.