Here at Casaonthenetheredge we have embarked upon FISH.
These were a 7th birthday present for the Big Small, and we’ve had them for two weeks.
So far we’ve lost two fish. And by lost I mean KILLED.
This may be some sort of record.
Certainly I can tell you that it involved the sort of existential conversations on the quality and meaning of life before 7.30am on a school day that no sane human being could possibly relish, conducting a fish funeral gatecrashed by Catonthenetheredge to nearly disastrous results, and the delivery of an (if I say so myself) especially moving eulogy, where we each got to say our favourite thing about our finished finned friends Orangey and Tamantha – before ceremoniously placing shells upon their shallow grave (hasilty dug with a dessert spoon).
I then got to get told off by the pet shop people for being a Bad Fish Mum, over-feeding, and creating a dangerous ammonia cycle. Or something.
So it’s going swimmingly.
If of course, we mean swimming belly upside down…
Fortunately we still have Holly, Willow, Tabby, Tinkerbell, and our five zippy minnows, Millie, Tillie, Silly, Willy – and Katie. (My kids rock at naming stuff).
To be fair, Tamantha’s demise was entirely a matter of extreme idiocy, having got itself stuck in the window of the psychedelic tank castle purchased for its entertainment. I actually had to stick my hand in and push it out backwards by the face with my finger. Gross. It swam round bleeding slightly and then went increasingly white and manky over the next 12 hours, and turned up dead the next morning.
Orangey, meanwhile, favourted the innovative self-harm method of entangling itself in plastic weeds, and then pulling off its own tail trying to escape.
So in summary, I would like to put forward that I’m not quite the Fish Murderer I may at first appear to be.
And that fish are categorically a) stoopid, and b) NOT the easy pet… (Get a damn cat, people).
In many ways, however, they HAVE already been good and educational for all of us – and not just in learning to deal with death and loss.
Together we’ve been learning about fish transportation (hanging), how to keep a tank (not like we’ve been doing it, apparently), how fish sleep (thank God for Alexa), how they poo (unimaginable amounts), magnets (to clean the tank) and syphons (to change the water).
From a personal perspective, I’ve had to face, head on, my pathological fear of reading instructions, in order to put the tossing tank together in the first place.
During which time the unsupervised children broke out the art equipment and got black paint on the walls – which was a salutary life lesson for them in what happens when Mummy completely and utterly loses her ever-living, she-widdling SHIZZLE.
I’ve also had to learn how to ignore the incessant dripping and whirring of the tank, which for the first week gave me palpitations and paranoia that yet another thing was falling off/apart in my crumbling twonk-pile of a house. Learning to hear the sound of suspicious drips and to just think, ‘sod it’, and turn the telly up is surely, SURELY the true definition of freedom? (It’s the one I’m going to have to go with, anyway).
The children, meanwhile, have also been learning that when I say they have to take responsibility for their new pets, what I really mean is that if they whine enough about it I’ll give up and do it myself. PARENTING 101, PEOPLE! I may write a book.
After all this, my only real and chief fish beef is with Holly (pictured), who’s actually a really, really nice fish. She comes to the front of the tank to say hello, follows your finger round, and is clearly interested in tank-side goings on.
It bothers me to discover that they’re actually sentient and friendly – to the point where I had to go and eat taramasalata in the kitchen the other day, because Holly was looking at me funny. Seriously. I fear vegetarianism beckons…
Now let’s have a moments silence please for Tamantha and Orangey. And a quick prayer that they don’t get dug up and brought back in by Catonthenetheredge.
Amen.
Mumonthenetheredge 