An Open Letter From Our Fish

Hi.


As of yesterday at 8pm, I lived in a little jar at the pet store alongside thirty or forty other betta fish. It wasn't a big place I had, but it was pretty quiet and peaceful.

Then The Forderers bought me and brought me home.

It was quite undignified. First I was kerplunked into a plastic bag and carried by a ten year old boy all the way home. He kept holding me up in the bag and looking at me, jostling me around, singing me the same song from The Killers over and over.

We got to their house. Pretty nice house, good neighborhood. But as soon as we walked in I could smell that there was a CAT downstairs. If you are a fish, this can bring on a lot of anxiety. I had to do breathing exercises to calm down.

They put me on the counter in my bag. There were two other little kids there, running around in circles and screaming about I don't know what. The Mom tried to keep them quiet, but they weren't listening. It was really loud and unnerving.

The two boys fought over me. It sounds more romantic than it really was. Each one of them wanted to be the one to put me in the tank. Finally the Dad stepped in and said if they can't get along then neither one of them was going to put me in the tank. I thought this was a wise move.

So the Mom got a new bowl ready for me and among all the shouting and screams (of delight, I think) I was kerplunked into the bowl. It's a pretty nice place. But man, these people were hyper! I had only been at their house for twenty minutes and already I needed a long nap.

After ogling me for a while, the parents put the kids to bed. I had an uneventful night. Which was a blessing because it has been a hell of a morning.

At 6:35 the middle kid comes crashing down the stairs, drags a stool over to my bowl and starts singing and talking to me. I don't know what he was saying, something about fish and star wars and spiderman and giant rats. Weirdo.

Then the other two kids came with the Mom and there was a big kerfuffle about what to name me. The middle kid wanted to name me Goldie (which is odd, considering I am not a goldfish) and the oldest kid wanted to name me Sly Cooper after a video game character. OH, the humanity. Finally they settled on Sly Goldie even though the oldest kid said it was the stupidest name he'd ever heard. Great.

So hi, my name is, um, Sly Goldie.

I swam around for a bit and watched these people get ready for their day. Now, I am no paragon of orderliness but these people are very unorganized. And the oldest kid totally didn't finish his toast even though he told his mom he did. I saw him toss it in the garbage.

At this point I figured that I might as well accept this family as they were and try to enjoy them. You can't pick your family, right?

BUT THEN. When everyone else was somewhere in the house, the littlest kid came to see me. She is pretty cute. But really close up to a fishbowl, not that cute. Kinda scary, actually. She talked to me, told me that she did not care for the names her duelling brothers had chosen, that she was just going to call me 'fishy' if it was alright.

I thought this was all well and good. Until she took a BABY WIPE out of a container and PUT it in MY BOWL.

I'll admit it. I panicked. You should have seen my gills. They were flapping like an old pair of undies on the line in a windstorm. I couldn't breathe. The baby wipe was floating down, down over me and I saw my life flash before my eyes.

Then the older boy saw what had happened. He yelled for the mom who came running and took the baby wipe out. I tried to signal to her that my water had been contaminated by the chemicals in the baby wipe! I guess she got it because she put me in a small bowl, changed my water, and put me back.

So now I am back. I'm okay, thanks for asking. But let me tell you I am not sure how long I will be around. I am completely exhausted now so I will sign off.

Here is to a better tomorrow.

Sly Goldie Fishy.