Another Story About Fish

When I was in college, my dorm-mates and I peeled ourselves from our beds one Sunday morning, and headed to the girl’s bathroom where we were faced with fish.

Tens of goldfish were swimming around in the toilets. They’d swim through the pipes, popping up in random bowls.

We called in the RA in to assess the situation.

“Yup, those are goldfish,” she assessed.

We started discussing what to do. “Flush them” was the general consensus.

I’m no animal lover. I mean, I like animals, but not those with slime or scales, or those that eat bugs, or those with an instinct to burrow, or those with the word “naked” in their name, or those that breath fire.

But the thought of 40 goldfish being flushed as if they were sucked into the mighty craw of Charybdis, was just too much for me and for my roommate, who was an animal lover, and even liked animals with slime, or scales, or that ate bugs, or burrowed, or with the word “naked” in their name, or those that breathed fire.

“NOOOOOO!!!!!” we cried. “Don’t flush them!”

“Why not?”

“They’re alive!”

“Well, you figure out what to do with them.”

I borrowed a small plastic aquarium net from a guy who actually had a fish tank, and spent the next 3 hours carefully scooping fish out of the toilets and into various cups and bowls filled with water.

Finally, I found about 20 people willing to adopt a couple of toilet fish. My roommate and I each kept one as well. We named them Mr. Hanky and Michael Jackson.

Problem was, we didn’t have a fish bowl. We were able to find some fish food at a local Walgreens, but we couldn’t buy a fish bowl because there were no pet stores within walking distance.

We decided to wait until the next weekend to take a bus to a pet store. In the meantime we kept the fish in a plastic water pitcher. Hey, it’s better than the toilet, right?

Right?

For a few days all was well. Mr. Hanky and Michael Jackson swam around their new home, eating all the fish flakes they wanted. I think I saw Mr. Hanky smile and nod once.

But then we started noticing tiny bubbles...lots of tiny bubbles hanging around our fish, and in the water.

The next morning we were dismayed to find Michael Jackson laying on his side at the bottom of the pitcher. By that evening both fish were dead, and we were forced to flush them back down the toilet from whence they came.

I think I should just avoid live fish altogether. It always seems to end in disaster.

Zombie Fish

My first summer after college I worked as a ticket attendant and concessionaire at a county park. Mostly the job involved selling tickets in a booth at the entrance, but occasionally I’d get to leave the booth to sell chips, soda and candy bars at the concession stand, or to do menial maintenance jobs around the park.

This was a welcomed respite until the day all the fish died.

The park had a small lake with a beach area. The lake had fish. One day the fish all caught fish ebola or something, and died. The next day we were faced with hundreds of fish floating belly-up in the lake and washing up on shore.

The beach was closed for weeks while various state agencies tried to figure out why the fish died and whether it was safe to swim in the water. They took a few samples of dead fish, and came to the conclusion, “We don’t really know why the fish died, but it’s probably safe to swim. Have fun!”

This meant there were approximately 3902 dead fish to clean up off the shores of the lake. For 3 days straight I’d walk around the lake carrying a bucket and using a pair of garbage grabbers to place dead fish in the bucket.

Good times.

Now, I’ve never been fishing. So on one sojourn I noticed a fish quite close to shore. It wasn’t floating belly-up, but it definitely wasn’t moving. I figured it had only recently died, thrust the garbage pickers into the water, and pinched it by the tail.

The fish immediately wiggled around furiously trying to swim away. I had apparently caught a zombie fish by the tail. I panicked (OMG ZOMBIE FISH!!!), pulled it out of the water and put it in the bucket with the rest of the ex-fish.

The fish flopped around in the bucket and quickly attempted to evolve and grow lungs. Oops. It wasn’t dead, it was just resting.

I felt bad, but the deed was done. The next day the park re-opened to patrons and I spent the rest of the summer sitting in an booth the size of a broom closet, sans airconditioning, collecting money from people who were pissed off that they had to pay to park their car at a county park.