Fish Massacre
We took Sam to a birthday party in November at which the party favor was a goldfish. I'm still plotting revenge on this friend by the way. Next time her kid comes to my house he is leaving my house with a hamster or better yet a Siamese cat. They are "dog" people and consider us to be "cat" people. Anyway, this goldfish lived on top of our refrigerator in a very small glass bowl until Christmas when Santa took pity on the poor thing and delivered a Spongebob Aquarium to our house. $30 gets you a plastic 1.5 gallon tank and a really small air pump. Essentially, it is a big fish bowl that bubbles with a Bikini Bottom backdrop. Totally cheesy.
So after reading the instructions and assembling the tubing and pump, Goldie has a new home. A week later, I take Sam (with baby in tow) to Petco. We get another goldfish that's silver with orange specks who gets the name Orangey and a skinny little fish that gets the name Ready. I spent a grand total of $0.42. Sam was delighted.
A week later Organey is floating. CRAP. Ed and I scramble to remove him from the tank and we decide to flush him. Great. Sam doesn't notice and we think we're in the clear. That is until bedtime when we tell Sam to go to the bathroom before getting in bed. You guessed it. Goldie didn't flush and Sam sees him floating in the toilet. So an impromptu discussion of fish Heaven ensues and the tears finally stop. Two days later, Ready floats and gets flushed. This time we watched to be sure he actually went down the toilet. It takes Sam two days to notice that he is down to one fish. To ease the pain, we offer to take him to get a couple more fish. At this point, my friend informs me that all the left over "party favors" died weeks ago so I'm thinking that we can't be that bad of fish parents as Goldie is still alive. We decide that maybe we are over feeding them and do some research on the proper amount of food.
A trip to Petsmart produces three new fish. We decided to go to a different store just in case the fish at Petco were somehow inferior. We spend way too much time picking out fish so that each fish looks totally different. This time I spend $0.92 and we don't name the fish. We now have the original solid goldfish, a silver one with gold specks, a gold one with a black tail, and a black one with gold spots. In Sam's mind, fish are now disposable pets and even asks on the way home if these die can he get more. Great.
Weeks go by and I think we're doing a really good job because everyone looks healthy and active. Almost daily, Ed and I discuss the fish and how they are doing. We think we're feeding them the right amount and we're changing their water weekly. We even made a special trip to Petsmart for water conditioner to remove the chlorine. Nothing is too good for our little fish. We're invested in these little creatures and Sam could care less. Until Tuesday, when the first one died. Then Wednesday, the original fish and a third fish died. And then yesterday, the last fish died. Tonight when Sam went to bed, he asked me that when we go to get more fish, could I ask the store owner how to keep them alive. Honey, I've decided that there will be no more fish. I've got too much going on these days to have the added pressure of trying to keep goldfish alive. While I don't buy into the "cat" people label, we definitely aren't "fish" people.
