In the annals of that vast category known as "Childhood Disappointments," there's not too many things that can compare with Sea-Monkeys.

Flashback to summer, 1982; I was in some tawdry retail store (probably K-Mart) with my mom, dragging my heels as she perused through the boring, "grown-up" shit. As was my habit in those days, I immediately made a beeline for the toy aisle, thinking that maybe I could sweet talk her into buying me some Star Wars  toys or something. (Because, you know, "sweet talking" NEVER worked on that prick of a father I had.) But as I ogled the hot plastic curves of a Princess Leia action figure, something else caught my eye; it was an OFFICIAL, "Instant Life" Sea-Monkeys kit.

My jaw dropped as I beheld the awesome sight before me. The Sea-Monkey box was bright, colorful and decorated with a wondrous scene that blew my mind. An entire Sea-Monkey family was smiling at me from the box, complete with a mom, a dad and two Sea-Monkey kids. Behind them was a beautiful castle which shimmered with an almost ethereal, magical glow. Clearly, these Sea-Monkeys were capable of living a life I could only dream of--but in the meantime, they were stuck in suspended animation, desperately hoping that I could free them from the messy, tacky toy aisle of the local K-Mart. I snatched up that box quicker than you can say "they're only brine shrimp" and sprinted down the aisle to find my mother. She absolutely had to buy me this... that's all there was to it. I'd offer to the do the dishes for a year. I'd pretend that I actually wanted to visit grandma's house. Hell, I was ready to pull a knife on her if necessary.

I couldn't believe how nonchalant my mom's reaction was when I showed her the greatest invention of all time. "Oh, Sea-Monkeys," she says. "Those have been around since I was a kid." She seemed to have no appreciation for the fact that I would, in just a few short hours, be playing God in the privacy of my own room. "Can I have this??" I cried, practically bursting at the seams. She heaved the same gusty, tired sigh that all mothers have and finally relented; "I guess."

The five minute ride home seemed like an eternity, especially since my mother wasn't considerate enough to ignore traffic lights to get us there faster. I leapt out of the car as it was still coming to a stop and bounded up the stairs to my bedroom like a madman. After all, I had a civilization to run and my Sea-Monkey citizens needed me. I tore into the box with the same gusto that I'd tear into a 12 pack of beer in later years. Inside, I found three small packets; one was marked "eggs," one was marked "purifier," one was marked "food"... and there was also an "owner's manual," which undoubtedly would teach me to be a fair, just ruler. That was all. K-Mart didn't have those fancy Sea-Monkey sets that came with the miniature plastic aquarium, so I had to steal a drinking glass from the kitchen. But the fact that I'd be creating a new world in the same glass that I'd drank Kool-Aid from the day before didn't damper my enthusiasm one iota. No, sir, my enthusiasm didn't wane until I read the instructions and found out that after "purifying" the water in the glass, I'd have to wait three days before I added the eggs. That's right, three whole days. I was absolutely devastated. I mean, at that age three days takes forever. They might as well have said, "Add purifier to water. Graduate college. Add the Sea-Monkey eggs."

Well, since I had a lifetime to kill, I spent the next few days pouring over my owner's manual. It filled my impressionable young mind with loads of Sea-Monkey propaganda, and only made the wait seem even more intolerable. The manual spun tales of being able to teach your Sea-Monkeys "tricks," mating rituals, family units and all sorts of things. It got me wondering what types of families would be occupying my drinking glass. Would they see my childlike face peering over the brim and worship me as a god? Would they grow to giant proportions and invite me along on the Sea-Monkey picnics I saw portrayed in the "artist renditions" inside the book? I only hoped that my particular packet of eggs contained some good Sea-Monkey architects, because I really wanted them to build that same castle I saw on the box. I didn't want any slums in my Sea-Monkey universe; I wanted nice, middle class families living in mid-sized houses, not Sea-Monkey drug addicts living in the projects.

When the big moment finally arrived, I made a formal announcement to my family so they could share in the wonder. They couldn't have been any LESS interested if they tried, but again, my enthusiasm didn't waver. So, taking a deep breath of anticipation, I opened the egg packet and slowly poured it into the glass...

Now, I have to be honest with you--I have no idea of what I was expecting to happen. Maybe I thought that when the eggs hit the water, they'd burst forth in multi-colored explosions of life and confetti would rain down from the sky. Maybe I thought the whole house would shake, lightning would strike the glass and I'd be bellowing, "They're alive!! AL-I-I-I-I-I-IVE!!! " Maybe... just maybe... I was expecting the Sea-Monkeys to spontaneously appear, get into a kick line and began singing a song entitled "Thank You For The Precious Gift of Life, O Great Master."  Well, needless to say, none of these things happened. In fact, nothing happened at all.

"Hmmmm, something must be wrong," I thought to myself as I leaned in for a closer look. I picked up the glass and shook it a bit, spilling some water over the sides. Then I began tapping the glass with my fingernail, trying to speed up the so-called "instant life" process. "Wake up, you little bastards." Finally, after several minutes had passed, I squinted my eyes almost to the point of shutting them and noticed a tiny creature wiggling in the water. It was no bigger than the period at the end of this sentence, and it bore NO RESEMBLANCE WHATSOEVER to the charming family on the front of the box. The Sea-Monkeys on the box looked a lot like the adult aliens in that dumb 80's movie/McDonald's commercial called Mac & Me. These things looked like more like miniscule, ugly swimming insects . They weren't cute at all! Hell, if I saw one of those things crawling around on the ground, I'd step on it.

To say I was disappointed would be a gross understatement. I can't even begin to tell you how crushed I was when I saw that my imagined "great society" amounted to little more than creepy little dots mindlessly swimming around in a drinking glass. I mean, I could have gone to a swamp, filled up my glass with that nasty swamp water and pretty much have gotten the same results. But then, a glimmer of hope came to me--my Sea Monkeys were only babies! What could I expect from them, anyway? It's not like they were going to immediately form a community and start doing tricks for me. Babies are useless, after all. All they know how to do is eat, sleep  and make too much damn noise.

But as the days passed, not much changed in my new Sea-Monkey world. They only got bigger... and creepier. I didn't see any Sea-Monkey families sharing quality time around the dinner table. I didn't see any Sea-Monkey construction workers in tool belts working on the castle that I was hoping for. I didn't see mustachioed Sea-Monkey males fighting over women, like the picture in the owner's manual led me to believe would happen. Nope, they just swam around in circles like miniature seahorses--and they didn't even have the courtesy to bow in reverence to their master when I peered into the glass.

Soon after, I forgot about them altogether. And as more time passed, the water slowly evaporated until eventually it was all gone, leaving only a crystallized pile of glop on the bottom of the glass. That glass had once been ground zero for my idealized Sea-Monkey utopia; and now it was no longer fit to even hold my Kool-Aid any more. The grand experiment had come to nothing.

I had some fun with my brief time as God. But as with most episodes of childhood, things never really happened the way I had planned them. I had so wanted to be a great ruler, but my subjects had let me down. Or maybe I let them down. Because for me, I like to think that if there IS actually a God watching over mankind, He sees us not unlike how I saw the life I had "created." We're all just mindless Sea-Monkeys, swimming aimlessly in this drinking glass known as the universe. How's THAT for an analogy??