Did I ever tell you about the silly little $50.00 free fish named Goldie. You see, my son won him at a school carnival. So, yes, he was free ... after $2.00 in quarters. My next door neighbor's son was bragging about the three fish he had gotten making my son a tad bit jealous. But, I explained that she was a teacher there, so they gave him the leftovers. As the son of a teacher from a different school, he would get no perks, or special treatment....though in all honesty, the teenage girls running the game felt sorry for him and gave him the fish after the eighth try. Personally I was quite content teaching him he can't always win. So much for life's lessons. He is already learning all right -- to work the girls.
It was a full night of basketball, popcorn, and quasi-cute and ingenoius homemade games. I decided it was time to leave after
lightly questioning a teacher who rubbed me the wrong way. I scooped up my son and his new pet in a bag that was smothered and wrapped with our winter coats. I didn't want another animal but knew this one would not be around too long.
However, heading home I began to sense I that I was in trouble; they had bonded. Well, more like my son fell in love. I got that impression when he began crying profusely after I said we would not go that night for a fishbowl. So, I did what any mother would to preserve her sanity, I made a u-turn and headed to the nearest pet store 20 minutes away for a bowl, some rocks, and some Goldfish food. Cha-ching: $20.00. So much for free.
Next, we did what any parent would do. We put it in the bowl and pushed the big red Staple's button that said, "That was easy!"
One week later, A horrible smell began seeping out of his room. It reeked of ammonia and the fish was barely visible behind a foggy haze of soot. I knew then and there that I could not put it off anymore. I moved the bowl to my office until I could change it later that day. And...finally... three days later, I braved the door to my office half expecting to see a floater. But much to my surprise, there swimming happily beneath a cloud thicker than Mount Saint Helen's ash and smelling like a sulphur pit, was Goldie (more like Ochre by then).
I poured him and some of his soot into a bowl, and dumped the rest. I then happily poured him into his temporary digs, a baptismal salad bowl font of fresh, clear, cool water. He looked oh so happy swimming around -- or so it seemed.
Well, a funny thing happened on the way to the forum... that frisky new member of the family...who should have loved being in his temperary situation while I waited another two or three days to clean his permanent one, lay suspiciously still at the bottom of his retention pond.
Uh-oh! I then kept the door closed on my office, not to hide the smell, but to keep my son from popping in and questioning me for the murder of his new pet. The funny thing is that my son did not even ask his about his $24.00 free fish the entire time. The smell had turned him off, too. And secondly, it was not quite dead. It was twitching ever so slightly at the bottom. As much as I did not want it to die and break my son's heart, I was a little perturbed at its resilience.
The next morning as I was sneaking a peak to check for movement, my son burst in behind me. I stiffened at the prospect of explaining this new phase of life and then announced, as ceremoniously as possible, "Baby, Goldie died. Now let's go flush him!"
"Huh, flush him?"
I realized the bluntness of my ways and softened it a bit by explaining, "We bury fish at sea...through the toilet. And then we say a prayer."
"Oh, okay!"
"Now let's hurry up and do it, so that we are not late for school!"
As I grabbed the bowl, my son screamed, "MOM, wait, he is moving!"
"What?"
Sure enough, the little booger twitched. I had moved too slowly.
I explained that he was truly almost dead, so we will have the burial after school... I was sure.
That evening I went in to do the dirty deed. He was lying there motionless at the bottom of the empty bowl when he twitched again. "Oh hell, let me throw him into his old bowl. His now clean, ammonia-free old bowl with the gold beehive and blue and red fake bush and see how long he lasts.
Well, much to my surprise, the damn thing started swimming and jumping like Shamu at Sea World. How do you go from deadlike and twitching to lively and acrobatic in under 60 seconds flat? You don't! Not if you are sick, but you do if you are sad. I am now firmly convinced that the little bugger was not ill at all, but depressed and in need of prozac. Fish have feelings, Nemo was not a lie!
The nice young lady at the pet store tried to convince me that it had experianced s a toxic shock caused by going from nasty to clean (my own description). But I am convinced otherwise. He was after all, still in the same water he had been playing possum in for two days.
(By the way, don't joke callously to pet store fish attendants about flushing fish after leaving them in pure ammonia piss for five days. They don't think it's funny.)
Later that night, as I dined on my Tilapia with lemon pepper and capers, I looked down at it and wondered what he was feeling as he was swept up into his net. And then my mind wondered further, like one house over, as I pondered how did my neighbor get all three of her son's goldfish to die? I can't get rid of one.
Lastly, on a a sidenote, I decided that if I must change a bowl that often, I had to breakdown and get a small filtered tank for his room. And I was in luck, they were on sell for $20.00, plus a net and a Betta fish for me (I have to use the old bowl for some right?) Last count, the free 15 cent goldfish was up to $48.00 plus tax. And the new filtered tank seems to look a little cloudy already... just two days later.
