Then There Were Five...

So I killed another goldfish today. I caught one in the gravel vacuum today while cleaning out the tank. He swam away so I thought there was no permanent damage done. That or it was that I didn't warm up the water sufficiently for them and the smallest died because of it... or possibly he was severely depressed and my cleaning out the tank gave him the most promising opportunity to commit suicide and make it look as though I had somehow caused it in my tireless efforts to keep their living environment pristine and beautiful.

I gazed upon my tank just a few moments ago, all of the fish swam to the corner to stare unblinking back at me as if to say "Why? Why did you do it? Baby Bear was the smallest of all of us." Or possibly it could have been "Food. Food. Food. Food." that they were saying, they are goldfish after all, eating is a central part of their lives. Besides the only goldfish to have a definite malicious and blaming personality was Spike (God rest her slimy soul) - Valkerie is a bit of a dippy fish, Thor is a glutton, Bubbles is a bimbo fish and Mama Bear and Papa Bear are just follower fish - they will go where ever the others go. (I know, I spend to much time staring at these fish).

This evening after hubby put Cabbage Patch to bed I asked him to remove Baby Bear from the tank (it was stuck up against the filter intake thingie... kind of gross but at least it wasn't floating on it's side anymore). Super Girl said to me "Aren't you going to say something?" I asked her what she meant. She wanted me to say a few words about the dead fish. Ahhhh.... thank you Nickelodeon, thank you Rugrats. Today Chuckie's bug died and they had a 'funeral' and everyone said something about the dead bug. So I said "Baby Bear was a good fish, a small fish but a good fish." She said "Baby Bear was a good fish, the cats liked her." At that very moment the cats, having just finished eating, were walking past the couch licking their lips. I had to stifle a laugh as an image of hubby putting the dead fish in the cat dish flashed in my mind - yeah they would like her like that... He would never ever do that though, I suggested it once for a fish I owned less than 48 hours and he looked at me as though I had just asked him to shoot his father and feed him to a family of mountain lions. So on Baby Bear's virtual tomb stone (shaped like a cat food can) it will read "Baby Bear, She was a very good fish, the cats liked her a lot." and a cartoon picture of fish bones at the bottom.