The Quaker Sea Cucumber

With great thanks to Anita, Anne, and Aimee, I've finally decided on a name for my sea cucumber. (Huh. All the suggestions came from women with A names...) My quest to prepare for marriage has run into numerous snags. Namely, the death of three seastars, a featherduster worm, and a sea urchin. Thus, a big part of the delay in naming was just to see if the sea cucumber survived.

He has. (She has? Only they know.) He has survived, through alkaline water and changes of salinity. He has survived despite the deaths of countless others, despite the odds. He has realized that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance character, and character hope, and he has found that the audacity of hope does not disappoint. He has bubbled out a resounding whiff of "Yes, we can."

And so he deserves the reward of Hoover. Why Hoover? Not just a great Quaker President, as quite and unassuming as a sea cucumber. It's also the first vacuum brand I think of, when I think of vacuums. Why vacuums? Oh. Sea Cucumbers sort of eat sand. They constantly crawl through the sand and swallow it for the bacteria, squirting it out, like a very soft, mushy vacuum cleaner. All that sand that you love walking through at the beach? Sea Cucumber droppings.

I think Hoover's very appropriate.