Toilet Paper: 23 rolls
Feeling Social Quarantine yet? A smidge.
My house has suffered its first casualty during this quarantine. While not COVID 19 related, the loss is still keenly felt. My gargantuan goldfish whom was never named but made me question if I accidently bought a koi fish, passed way this afternoon from what I suspect was a swimming bladder issue. I tried to save him, but I fear once he started drifting belly up to the top of the tank, his fate was sealed.
I wanted to give my fish a Viking burial, but Boyfriend vetoed the idea, reminding me that the beaches were closed and that it probably wasn’t worth the possible Coronavirus exposure. So, I gave him a very respectable garbage can funeral. I played ‘Oh, Danny Boy’ by The Fenians (because that man’s voice is divine) and wrapped him in double-ply toilet paper (worth more than gold.) A modern-day King Tut burial if there ever was one.
As for the remaining fish, I think they’re plotting my demise. They now just just watch me while their brains work out the logistics of how to end a land-dweller. They try a different strategy every time I lift the fish tank lid. So far they’ve only managed to splash me, but the intent is there.
And, I’m not being paranoid. My fish have worked together once before to bring down a different foe.
::clears throat:: It was a year and a half ago, and I was at the pet store shopping for fish tank supplies for a different fish tank (yes, I have two). I was passing the goldfish tanks when I noticed a dead fish floating near the surface. It bobbed and twitched much like I figured a zombie fish would and I consigned myself that the Zombie Apacolypse would start in a Pet Store in Southern California. I looked forward, because I wanted to get a better look of patient zero when I noticed a thin line of entrails reached downwards until I found another fish eating the other end Lady and the Tramp style, bobbing the dead fish like a morbid balloon.
I just had to have him and I took him home, naming him Cannibal Hector (I forgot that the movie character’s name was actually Hannibal Lecter). I added him to the tank with the others. While I found Cannibal Hector’s antics deeply amusing, the other goldfish seemed to suspect something wasn’t quite right with the newcomer. It was like they knew that he had tasted the flesh of the goldfish and, like any zombie, would strike again once everyone dropped their guard.
One night, while the lights were off, Cannibal Hector vanished. I figured that maybe he jumped out of the fish tank and the dog ate him. Or Boyfriend tossed him when he noticed a dead fish on the floor. Then I forgot about the incident entirely.
Six months later, the tank started to leak and I had to transfer the fishes into another one. Upon moving the large rocks, I found the skeletal remains of Cannibal Hector.
Moral of the story, while the fish are limited by their watery enclosure and their lack of opposable thumbs, they can still move stones the sizes of boulders and kill a killer before the he eats them.
I will be watching my fish very closely for the next few weeks, anticipating retaliation for their comrade’s removal. There is a slight possibility that quarantine has made me a little loopy. Either way, I will be ready when they try to take me out.
Bring it!
