Hermit crab in my pocket!

On our journey thus far, aside from picking up oil riddled shells and putting them in a ziplock baggie, I have not done the tourist type thing of picking up shells to take home with me. This is something I would normally do, and I have intentions on taking shells home to my daughter, but I planned to buy the shells in a store. Perhaps that seems a little silly, but I would rather be safe than sorry when it comes to the oil spill. Now let me get to the point.
I saw a beautiful shell lying on the shore of Dauphin Island today. A shell I looked at stepped past, looked at again and decided I just couldn’t resist. It was beautiful, a white swirly type shell with brown and red, unlike anything I have seen. So I picked it up, examined it for oil, tried to dust the sand out of it and then put it in my pocket and went on.
I had that shell in my pocket for a few hours and even forgot about it and sat on it. When we were all ready to leave Riley realized he lost his sunglasses in the sand so he and Dr. Lo went to find them. Fortunately for Riley, Dr. Lo found them. While walking to the car for the second time Riley proudly showed us a blue crab claw he discovered on the beach while he was looking for his sunglasses. It was then that I remembered the shell in my pocket and reached back to get it.
While pulling it out I felt it move and thought to myself, it must be the sand falling out. Something told me to look to make sure, and when I did I realized it was a hermit crab! I have never held a hermit crab before and I was a bit freaked out. The hermit crab, I guess feeling comfortable, decided it was going to come out of it’s shell and I squealed a bit scaring it back in. I noticed that my squeal made it return to its shell so when it started to come out again I squealed again, on purpose that time because I was afraid if it came out of it’s shell that I would get scared and drop it.
During this time Riley and Dr. Lo were calling me an “animal killer” because I took it off the beach and Riley was saying that I would kill it. Dr. Lo smartly suggested I give it to one of the people returning to the beach and so I did. Whether or not that hermit crab made it back to shore, I will never know.
After we reached the car I realized that I had no photograph to show from my hermit crab experience because I was shooting video when I came across the shell.