There's nothing about a crab, or on a crab's body, that would indicate to you that it does walk sideways, just by looking at it. I mean, it doesn't have legs that poke out at weird angles, and both its eyes face front just like any other animal.

 

There doesn't seem to be any practical reason why they have to walk sideways like that, unless there are aquatic predators that have been fooled by this tactic for thousands of years. They see a crab and open their mouths and think, There's a crab and he's coming right towards me! And then it's like, Psyche! Or maybe the predators think the crabs are all drunk or crazy and so they keep away.

 

It's not something you would really imagine something in nature doing, like a spider walks on walls or a bug flies, and while those seem really cool, walking sideways just seems stupid. You never hear of aliens in science fiction who are shaped like huge dinner plates and walk sideways. And if there were such aliens, it's likely that they would walk into walls and stuff, which is something you never see crabs doing. Running into rocks, I mean, or even each other.

 

When you think about it, a lot of things in nature are like this. Man is supposed to be so smart and superior, yet we have to wear special safety equipment so that we don't accidentally lop off body parts while working with power tools. But you never see bugs colliding in mid-air and then plumetting to their deaths, and even though you can kick an anthill and see ten thousand ants run around in a billion different directions, you never see them bonk heads together and get knocked unconcious.

 

The closest thing there is to this type of stupidity in nature usually involves mirrors. Like those Siamese Betta fish who puff up when they're ready to fight, and when you put a mirror up to the fishtank and they just totally freak out and sometimes even ram their heads into the glass. Or how a bird will fly right into a mirror, which if you think about it is even stupider than flying into another bird.

 

And of course, there's lemmings, who are kind of like rats except that once a year they have this weird instinct to hurl themselves off cliffs and drown themselves. I wonder how Darwin would explain this instinct. I also wonder if maybe some geneticist isn't working feverishly to isolate this "suicide gene" so that it can be more favorably introduced into larger populations of real rats, or roaches, or mimes. I don't think the thought processes of lemmings are fully understood, but that just may be because none of them live long enough to be psychoanalyzed, because they keep killing themselves.

 

Anyway, maybe the reason crabs don't run into each other is simply because things like crabs and ants that have a lot of legs tend to step on each other a lot and it never really seems to bother them, which on the surface of it seems to indicate a kind of zen-like acceptance of one another. It's like they have their own rules of ettiquette and civilized behavior, which seems to encompass stepping on and over each other with great frequency. On the other hand, crab ettiquette also seems to make allowances for ripping each other to pieces and then feasting on your enemie's carcass, so it doesn't seem like an even trade-off. This mostly happens when one of them is weak or injured.

 

It's kind of ironic that hippies who talk about everyone living in peace and harmony also want us all to get "back to nature". Because if we lived like crabs and stuff like them, we'd see a guy on crutches hobbling down the road and then ten people would jump on him and beat the crap out of him.

 

If this was so, and our tendency was to beat up and even eat people who were sick or weak, then I would be such a total hypochondriac, I would always be going to the doctor and taking medicine, even if I didn't need it. Plus, I would always be at the gym.

 

Of course, it would cut down on funeral costs, because you would only have to bury the bones and heads. And there wouldn't be any homes for the elderly, as there would never even be any elderly.

 

One thing for sure, it would give a whole new meaning to the word "crabby".