Wednesday, January 12, 2011

War and Jefferys

It has come to my attention that there are some of you out there, in the magical land of the Internets who are unaware of the very real menace provided by the Jefferys.  You are complacent, content to sit upon your thrones and festoon your ivory towers with pro-Jeffery propaganda.  This is, perhaps, my fault.  It’s not likely that it is my fault that some of your are Jeffery sympathizers, but just in case and to cover all bases I would like to make very clear just what the Jeffery are, why they are possibly demonic in origin, and otherwise illustrate their fleshy but menacing countenances.

Firstly, the term “Jeffery” is not actually a scientific name of any particular crustacean or invertebrate, and I do not know of any marine organism called a Jeffery.  In fact a quick Google search for “Animal named Jeffery” netted me a page on Jeffrey Dahmer (possible foreshadowing that you’ve all been misled), a website about a dog named Jeff who was a hero (and rightly so, his name is Jeff not Jeffery), and a “Vegan Police” site about a goat named Jeffery Thomas.  I’m pretty sure that whatever happened to Jeffery Thomas he was up to no good because he had two first names.  Jeff Tom the goat.

Anyway, Jeffery in our context applies to several different marine menaces in the tank.  You will probably all think I am a terrible person before I am half finished.  More than likely you will begin a campaign to “Save the Jeffery” or boycott me as an interminable Jeffery hater which makes me wonder why I am writing this because frankly, the Jeffery do not deserve to be saved.  Since it’s too late to simply Ctrl+Alt+Del this, and because this is officially Jeffery Awareness Day you’re going to have to deal with it.

Jeffery is actually a really wonderful human being who is particularly odd in that fantastic sort of way and I love my dear friend Jeffery very much.  Jeffery is also weird (he will admit this readily) and there is a longstanding animosity between Jeffery and frogs (he will deny that vehemently).  Jeffery is not an annoying person, he has in our years of friendship never managed to piss me off which is a miracle because I am a very uppity woman.  I still tell Jeffery that he is annoying however, to keep him on his ever so polite toes.  The human Jeffery is never too busy to take on another task to help a friend, he will probably help you clean up toxic waste if you offer him a half used roll of Bounty paper towels and eye the offending matter just long enough for him to get the hint.  In short, he is a saint annoying. 

My friend took a very keen interest in the new aquarium (probably because I wouldn’t shut up about it and he’s so polite) and all that it took to get it up and running.  It only seemed right to name a creature after Jeffery.  A perfectly considerate, polite, helpful, and weird creature it would have to be because Jeffery himself embodies all of those properties completely.  So, when we brought home our tank janitors to clean up the live rock and the live sand, and generally keep our aquarium happy and healthy it only seemed right that they all be granted the name of Jeffery. 

This was a huge mistake.  It was right on par with keeping a cut onion in the refrigerator next to your butter.  By the way don’t ever do that either. 

While human Jeffery is a sweetheart, his namesakes are bastards – seriously I don’t think their mothers were actually married when they reproduced.   Especially since most snails are hermaphrodites, which is certainly going to produce some gastropod foursomes.  At first these Jeffery seemed very sweet and innocent, if a little slow. They meandered across the glass, the live rock, the live sand, and cleaned and pooped to their hearts content.  Mostly they pooped by my reckoning, since there was a lot more snail waste than snail clean up trails.  It was when we brought home the first coral that they showed their true colors by clambering over our precious new acquisition and defiling it with their suction covered underbelly. 

The coral was rightfully offended and closed immediately, probably screaming for help to no avail as it was violated by the Jeffery who without so much as a “How do you do ma’am” ran roughshod over her polyps like a subway groper.  We sprang into action when the Jeffery persisted in the slovenly show of affection and flicked it off of our coral that after a few minutes tentatively peeked out to make sure she was safe.  The poor thing has probably developed some sort of delayed stress disorder from being so savagely ravaged.   We figured this was a once only affair, that after chastising the Jeffery so thoroughly it would not be tempted to harass our coral. 

We were so very, very wrong about that.  The Jeffery returned with other Jeffery to harass the coral, under the auspices of greetings, welcome parties, cleaning, introduction, and other malarkey.  The Jeffery was trying to kill the coral so as to maintain complete mastery of the tank!  This song and dance continued with each additional coral, until the Jeffery found one they could topple, and gleefully they have knocked that coral over every day, so much so that no matter where it is in the tank the Jeffery hunt out and maim her.  Our solution of course, is glue, which we will use to affix our coral to the rock in order to spite the Jeffery.  Pictures of this will surely follow this evening.

The Jeffery are not confined to coral sexual harassment, they also climb into the overflow (totally not respecting the teeth meant to deter them) and try to wedge themselves in the siphon tube to back up the entire tank onto the floor.  Apparently if it isn’t just their tank, it’s the tank of no…marine aquatic life thing.  They also attempt to get out of the tank and crawl along the light (which seems very stupid to me), they loiter near the pumps peddling magnesium to the hermit crabs, and are concentrating their pooping near Juan Pedro’s chosen rock.  In short they are hoodlums, derelicts, radical gastropods! 

I urge you to look past their conical shells, their strangely comforting eyes, and cleaning capabilities and behold the real menace:


See, right there ---^ that Jeffery is having its way with the other Jeffery in some orgiastic display of evil all the while mocking the venerable peace sign championed by pot smoking hippies in the seventies. 

2 comments:

  1. Jeffery loves you hon but that tank.... will be ours you are just delaying the inevitable! Oh and btw its not sexual harassment if they dont have boners so tell that to your corals the next time the gives the jefferys the wrong idea!

    ReplyDelete
  2. One day.... when you least expect it..... you will not be able to help yourself..... you too will..... fall in love with the JEFFERYS!!!!!! too!!!!!

    ReplyDelete