Before the great Flood of Horror, there was another little incident with the Fishtank of Horrors that I didn't quite get around to mentioning. It's a gruesome tale, so consider yourself warned.

Waaaay back in April, I was having trouble with fish randomly disappearing in the tank. It had been going on for a few months and was getting on my last nerve. I couldn't figure out what I was doing to kill all those fish and spent HOURS testing the water, cleaning the tank, and fretting over what the problem could be. Then, one day, I saw my answer. I saw the brittle starfish hunting down and killing a pink fish.

The brittle starfish, with a body about the size of a quarter and long, almost worm-like skinny tentacles, was a murderer.

A day or two later, that same starfish was obviously poised outside a cave, just waiting for the fish inside to emerge so the starfish could have a nice little Scooby Snack. Mr. Husband reached into the tank and with his bare hands, yanked the starfish out and shoved it into the tiny little 5-gallon tank that was sitting on the dresser right next to the bigger tank.

*shudders*

It's punishment was solitary confinement.

I had intended to bag up the starfish and haul him down to the local fish store. It was to be a case of "leaving the baby on the doorstep" except that in this instance, the baby was a nasty killer starfish. But days went by and then turned into months, and the starfish remained in the isolation tank.

I stopped caring.

Occasionally I would drop some food in, but mostly I just left the starfish to do whatever it is that starfish do. Then one day I caught a Mother Truckin' Worm in the good tank and didn't really feel like walking four feet to properly dispose of it in the throne, so I decided to give the starfish company. I plopped the worm into the isolation tank. Over time, I plopped in about five more worms.

At least the starfish had company, right?

Well, maybe not. Early last week I lifted the lid to the tiny isolation tank and noticed that the starfish looked . . . off. It's color wasn't quite right. It was sort of twitchy looking, what with it's rolled up legs and paler than usual coloring. If starfish molted, that's what I would have thought it was doing. It looked very weird and was moving in odd circular yet tangly motions.

However, it was not weird enough to keep my attention for long. After staring at it for about ten minutes, I headed out so we could continue to enjoy our staycation. I didn't give the starfish another thought until that night when we returned. I opened the tank lid to drop in some food and realized that the starfish, who previously had five very long and gangly legs, suddenly only had one leg.

The starfish ripped all of its own legs off. Except one. Because once you're down to one leg, you don't have another leg to rip it off with.

Gross.

I grabbed the net and started sloshing around to scoop out the one-legged starfish. Except, it wasn't dead. No siree, the thing survived ripping off its own legs. So, I let it be.

A few days passed and the one-legged starfish somehow persevered. I have to think it was holding onto life for one reason and one reason only.

It wanted to rip off that last leg.

It succeeded in that mission a few days ago and has since passed on to the giant ocean in the sky. In it's wake, it has left one severely twitchy woman who doesn't even want to think about how you rip off an appendage when it's the only one you've got.

*shudders*

Because I like you, here's a photo that may help wipe tha image of a one-legged starfish working on being a no-legged starfish from your brain.