May God Be with you Lance Corporal Fishy

I have lost a fish. Lance Corporal Fishy is MIA. Yes you read that right. I lost a pet fish.

This story begins with a fish named Fishy. My daughter wanted a fish, so we got a Betta. We have no other pets unless the children or the husband counts. So we take this fish home. He lives in a bowl for a week. I change the water and it killed him. The bowl said to use bottled water, and fish cannot survive in Aquafina (I know, irony), which is why I stopped buying that water. So I bought a new fish and used regular tap water with the treatment stuff, and I did this all behind my daughter's back. She noticed a change in personality in Fishy, but never once did she question it. So, she has no idea that I killed Fishy until she reads this blog with old age. I did give Fishy a proper burial, well, I flushed him down the toilet after saying some prayers, which is a proper fish's burial. They want to be buried in water because they are fish. (She probably will read this some day).

So this Fishy was crazy. He liked to sleep on his side, so we always thought he was dead and then he'd start swimming like he's all kinds of fine. But the craziest thing is that he survived so many catastrophes. We went to Puerto Rico, so we took him to my sister's house, and my nephew took care of him. We didn't retrieve the fish for like a month, and the water went unchanged for that month. He was fine. No matter what kind of water change I did, he handled it like a boss (except I never attempted Aquafina again).

After that, when the bowl got dirty again, I really procrastinated the job. It had lots of little pebbles in it, and all the drains in my house are slow drains right now. It's impossible to clean that bowl without accidentally getting some pebbles down a drain. I don't think my drains can handle it. So I procrastinated to a point where there was only a half inch maybe of water in it. I looked over at him, and he was on his side. I swore he was dead. No. His tail was half out of the water, and he had his face all buried in the bottom and you can see him breathing the water, struggling, but handling it. So I took him out and moved him to a small jar temporarily. The look on his face was Marine Corps badass look, and that's when he earned the rank Lance Corporal.

Then at some point while I was out somewhere doing something and all the kids were here on the hubs watch, the 2 year old threw the jar with Fishy in the kitchen. The jar didn't break, but there was a bang. He ignored it because kids make banging sounds. So a few minutes MINUTES later, he hears the oldest kid crying in her bed. He goes to check on her, and she tells him that the 2 year old knocked over Fishy. So then he checks on the fish, and Lance Corporal Fishy was there on the floor with no water around him whatsoever. He was on his side, not moving. The hubs picked him up with intent on flushing him because he's obviously dead, and then Lance Corporal Fishy started flapping and convulsing for water, which the hubs just dumped him in tap water in that same jar.

So I get home, and I see him swimming on his side. I could tell he was dying. I mentioned it to the hubs, and that's when I got the story about him being dropped/thrown. I fortunately had a bottle of Betta Fish Water I got from the store (already room temp) and I took care of it. He was fine.

Some time later, the oldest child moved him to her bedroom from his home in the kitchen. He did well in their room for a few days, up until the middle child decided to feed him. She dumped the entire tub of flakes and the tub of bloodworms into his little jar. You couldn't see him. There's no way he could survive that. Nope. He survived it. I then moved him over to a Mason Jar just because he needed a clean Jar STAT, and it was bigger.

This time I kept him in the kitchen for, dramatic irony, safety. Of course, a fish in a Mason Jar next to the sink is probably not the smartest of ideas I've ever had. I almost washed him as a dirty dish twice. So I went out and bought him a new bowl (since I threw the old one away, fuck those pebbles). This time I upgraded to one that was larger with LED lights and a waterfall. I also bought bigger stones for the bottom and some new stuff for inside. Then one morning I wake up. I go to the kitchen. I start making room for Lance Corporal Fishy's new home. I wanted a decent location where there wasn't much clutter. I got rid of my air tight decorative containers and my basket of crap (random shit you throw in that basket while cleaning because you don't know what to do with it, like ear plugs, shoe laces, the bottom of the microscope, screws, unknown parts to something, batteries, pennies, warranties...). Somewhere through that, I realized Lance Corporal Fishy and the Jar are gone. GONE!

So I ask the hubs. He knows nothing. The children, nothing. I looked all over the house in obvious locations, like where the oldest keeps him in her room. Nothing. I looked in less obvious places like cabinets I don't go into frequently, bathroom cabinets, closets, even toy chests. Nothing.

Then it dawned on me that my mother had came over the night before. We were supposed to go to her house for dinner, but I had a show-stopping migraine and she had a last-minute schedule change, so she came over while I was clonked out on Toradol and Phenergan and Benadryl. She tends to do my dishes when she's here. Sure enough, there's a Mason Jar in the dishwasher. Now I do own more than one of those, but I don't think I had any out dirty, but I saw my oldest kid playing in the cabinet where I keep them earlier that day, so she may have taken one out and that might be what made its way to the dishwasher. But still, my mom has mom syndrome once again ever since she took in my nephew full time.

Now here's the issue with the mom dish washing theory. One side of my sink is the broken garbage disposal. A fish's body couldn't fit through that. A popcorn kernel can't. I had the hubs take apart the disposal, pull it out, and look in it. No fish. The other side of the sink is a strainer his body would never fit through, and if my mother lifted it up with gunk and stuff going down the normal drain, that side of the sink would be backing up. His body isn't in the dishwasher either. I can't find him anywhere. It's possible he is barely surviving in some crazy hiding spot the kids put him in. It's also possible he is swimming in the sewage system and will flop out in some random person's bath tub. I do not believe he is dead because this is the fish who wouldn't die. I totally believe this fish is alive somewhere, out there, where love will see us through.

But until we meet again, I bought another Fishy. He has no rank or title. He's just Fishy until he earns some title based on personality. He is enjoying Lance Corporal Fishy's new bowl, and it does make me sad, but sometimes shit happens and we just move forward. I do miss Lance Corporal Fishy more than I probably should miss a fish.

Fishy enjoying Lance Corporal Fishy's Bowl

P.S. My daughter thinks this is still all the same fish.