Let me just start out by saying that I am not a pet person. I am allergic to most things with fur and I really don't enjoy spending most of my life medicated or sneezing. I am also NOT AT ALL ready to have children and having a pet is very much like having kids. You feed them, you potty-train them, you play with them, etc. You are responsible for a high-maintenance creature that is not yourself. Someday I would like to do that, but not today.
But, I can have fish. Fish are low-key; you don't have to play with them (although teaching them to spin in circles is entertaining), you don't have to potty train them (though sometimes I wish I could), feeding requires a quick shake of a canister - this is the good life!
At my old apartment I had several fish, two of which were red swordtails. Little did I know, in my desire to get one with an actual swordtail and one with out, I got a male and a female fish. They did what all heterosexual fish do and several weeks later I had a VERY pregnant fish. Did you know that both male and female swordtails eat their babies? I found that out after I called the PetSmart hotline (yes, they have a 24-hour hotline). Well, I didn't have anything to seperate out the young, so I (sadly) had to let mom and dad eat the kids.
But that isn't the end of the story! Actually, it really isn't the beginning either, it's kind of backstory for what I was going to say about tomorrow, but I like this story too! :-)
Several weeks later I saw this small blob dart across the fish tank...a baby fish had survived! So, of course I called her Nemo, the Little Fish who Could. It was a happy day. But, Nemo died before I could move to my new apartment.
Yes, I got new fish. They are my companions, my friends, my confidants...er...no. I just like to watch them swim. It's kind of a stress reliever.
Enter Flapjack, Tonto, Thing 1 and Thing 2. F and T are silverdollar fish and T1 and T2 are red fish. I had another, an
upsidedown catfish, but he disappeared before I could name him. Maybe I should have called him Houdini! I looked all throughout that tank (and even around it in case he jumped out somehow) but I could never find him. Hmm....maybe he got sucked into the filter. Yuck.
Now, here's the story. Two days ago, I had to unplug the filter for something but I couldn't get it to work again after I plugged it back in. This was saddening, but it was late so I decided to leave it until I had time to research it and fix it (google works wonders). Last night, I was sitting in my chair, reading a text message on my phone when something darted through the fish tank catching my eye. I looked up, and lo and behold, there were 5 fish in the tank! Houdini is back! There he was swimming away as if he had merely been on vacation!
Matthew, Peter, and Saul (to name a few) got new names. Now Houdini does too. I shall call him Lazarus. Or Jesus (Hey-zoos, not Gee-zus). This is a happy day!
