Friday, July 26, 2013

Where fish go to die...

My thought after the fish-tastrophe of 2013, was, "Not so good with plants, terrible with fish, doing alright with kids, I'll stick with the kids."

Our longest living fish died last week.  We were down to one.  I kinda thought we were good with one.  But then Garrett kept telling me his fish died and got flushed down the toilet.  I heard about it one too many times, so I told him we could go pick out a new fish.

We picked out a guppy, and while the fish lady was fishing him out, the kids were obsessed with watching the frogs.  I told them our tank was too little for a frog.  The fish lady said, "You can have one of these frogs."  She pointed to these little nickel-sized African guppy frog things.  They were only $3.50, so we got one of those too.  I had to sign a paper that said we wouldn't sue them if one of us touched the frog and got sick.  And when we had the frog out and ready to go she informed me that he needed different food.  So it cost a little more than $3.50, but whatever.

Night one of guppy/frog/old fish bonding seemed to go ok.  The next morning though, the guppy, Go Fish, was dead.  Our old fish is Mr. Fishie, Guppy was Go Fish, and the frog was, notice I said was, High Jump.
After Go Fish died, we decided to clean the tank and change the water.  We put High Jump and Mr. Fishie in a glass vase.  We decided to leave them in the vase overnight to let the new water purify.  Before I went to bed I noticed Mr. Fishie was kinda bugging High Jump.  He's kind of a chubby lazy fish and he lays on the bottom a lot.  He kept laying on High Jump.  Paul took him out and put him in a different vase.  Then he put Saran wrap over all of the top except for about a half an inch space.  I didn't think that was necessary because the fish lady said he would not jump out unless there were rocks or a plant leading right to the exit of the tank.  There was a good four inches from the top of the water to the top of the vase, and nothing in there with him.  We left the vases on the stove top and went to bed.

The next morning when I got up I checked on Mr. Fishie first because he seemed to be resting more than usual.  He seemed fine.  So I looked in the other vase.  High Jump was gone!  At least he lived up to his name in his short life.  He was gone gone.  I looked everywhere.  I woke Paul and he got a flash light.  We pulled the oven out and took as much of it apart as we could.  We cleared and washed the counter and moved everything.  No sign of him.
So we did what anyone would do.  Turned the oven on for a while.  We still have yet to find the poor little guy.

Paul went and bought a couple 10 cent feeder fish the next day.  The tank is still in his bathroom and I haven't even seen the new ones or Mr. Fishie in days.  I'm kinda over the fish.  We'll see how I feel when Garrett gets back.  He still doesn't know about High Jump.

He was here when Go Fish died.  He walked out of his room with a droopy lip and sadly said, "Go Fish died."  I said, "I'm sorry bud, are you sad?"  He cheered right up and said, "No."  I said, "Oh...good...did you not know him long enough to be sad that he died?"  He again cheerfully said, "Yeah!"  Maybe he'll forget while he's gone that we even had a frog.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I have yet to discuss death in any way with my kids. I don't even say talk about "killing" bugs like spiders. :D Sorry about the frog. That would give me the willies, wondering if he was hanging around somewhere...