The Crab Security System

As an example of me not taking myself seriously at times I figured writing about a dream that I had (and the subsequent waking thoughts about it) might be worth a laugh or two. Consider this proof that there is at least one sandwich missing from the picnic...

In what can only be described as one of my more 'creative' dreams, I found myself at home late one evening putting the final touches together for a new security system designed to deter those who would break in. Nothing strange so far, apart from the security system involved the use of live crabs.

As I sat on the countertop and checked the final details on my phone, one press of a button later the lights had darkened to only a faded red and every odd floor tile (that didn't have something on it) started to raise up like a chess board splitting between black and white.

As the floor tiles arose a small army of angry crabs appeared in a frenzy, desperately searching for someone to attack. As a test I threw a pork knuckle into the middle of the floor, only to hear the shattering of bone and the clinks of the claws making easy work.

Another press of the button and the lights start to raise, forcing the crabs to react and head back under the floor into the darkness. As the final floor tile lowers back into place I get off the counter, walking to the remains of meat and bone to clean up the remnants. A successful test I think, pleased that my house should be that little bit safer should an intruder decide to pay a visit.

I woke up at this point, questioning what I had drank the night before (paint stripper maybe?) and how I had managed to conjure this. In reflection, watching Crab Rave before bed may have been a mistake...

At this point most people would try to forget the antics of the dream world the night before and move on with their day, however in true spirit of the idiotic I sat eating breakfast and thinking about the flaws of the security system my brain had conjured up:

Animal welfare (keeping crabs under your kitchen floor is not a nice thing to do)
Food (feeding hundreds of crabs each day is not cheap)
Smell (hundreds of crabs do not smell nice)
Cleaning (how do you clean hundreds of frenzied crabs)
Noise (all the soundproofing in the world will not make this quiet)
Training (crabs do not like to be trained, ask their union rep)
Logistics (the tiled floor approach has issues, including people standing on a raised tile)
Self-own (there's a high probability of losing my feet, or worse, to this idea)

OK, so lots of negative points about an already crazy idea, time to call it quits right? Nope, true to form my next task of the day was to think of improvements to the design to make it viable. Well, as it happens the biggest change that could be made to improve multiple aspects of the above is to switch to robot crabs. Not only is this better for the crabs, it has some serious benefits:

No need for food (wireless charging is all the rage, so make the most of it)
No smell (only the blood of the intruders to deal with)
No cleaning (see previous point)
No sound (a stealthy security system has its own rewards)
Obedient (programmed as required, including a dance if time allows, and definitely avoidance of my limbs!)
Claws that can really cut through bone (at some point in the future, titanium crabs will be all the rage)
Lasers! (glowing eyes just aren't enough, and lasers are cool)
Video footage (likely breaks YouTube's content guidelines though)

At this point (thankfully) I moved onto the next task of the day otherwise I would have started sketching a design and likely lost an ankle somewhere along the way. Until the next dream...

P.s. For those who don't get the reference click here