Looks like it was the weekend of family expansion! Christine and Cuy and their family welcomed Owen and over at our household, a few months after Christmas, Anthony arrived.
Dog? Cat? Guinea Pig? Nope it’s a fish. A betta fish. Apparently you can’t buy a goldfish without having a filter system? Huh??? I don’t think the dude at the pet store was particularly impressed with my lackadaisical attitude towards the life cycle of goldfish.
Me – “I had goldfish all the time when I was a kid and never had a filter.”
Him – “Yes and how long did they live?”
Me – “Not long but how long should they live?
Him – “Thirty to forty years.”
Me – “Who in gods name wants a goldfish for that long??”
A blank stare….followed by an awkward silence.
Okay then buddy – what you got for this mom with toddler who has been promising a fish for months? A Japanese fighting fish! Sweet.
I tell him that I’ll take two please – one red and one blue. You know…Anthony and Murray. Then he tells me that they’ll kill each other if they’re in the same bowl. Interesting…my brain churns with how I can tell Will that he can only get one. Why do I worry?
Me – ‘Hey bud – you can only get one fish. They like to do their own thing.’
Will – ‘Ohhhh like Scotty*. Okay I get Anthony.’
And that was that. And now we are three. Well, maybe five since a plastic Diego and sea turtle also live in the bowl with Anthony.
It’s pretty cute. Will says good morning and good night to him. He feeds him and tells him what he’s doing that day. “Bye Anthony – I go to school now but Mommy comes and gets me and we come right right back.”
For me, it feels oddly complete. I always had a pet growing up. We had dogs. My first dog was a beautiful german shepherd/lab mix named Thumper. My mom was apparently insane as they got that puppy the year I was born. Hey with four kids under six why not throw a dog in there too. After he went to the great playground in the sky, we got Corkey – a not so beautiful daschund/poodle mix (this was before inbreeding was fashionable). My dad said he looked like an a$$hole with legs. This about summed him up but I loved him. Then I had the cat, previously discussed, who left me when my postpartum set in.
Now I feel ready. Not for a dog. Never again for a cat. But the fish feels right. And as ridiculous as this might sound – I feel like it makes us more of a family. We chose him together – he’s our pet.
Did you have pets? Are you a pet family now??? Should I seek professional help for my last statement??
*My nephew Scotty likes to avoid Will like the plague at times and when he does, we tell Will that ‘he’s doing his own thing’.
I love this!! What a nice family you have, Sara…
We have an aging cocker/beagle mix pup called Charley (he’s 13, and he’s… well, old.) For Oliver’s 6th birthday, we got him two chocolate oranda goldfish (they’re a glossy brown – like cinnamon) and he named them after himself. After his sister kept chucking lego and other assorted crap into the bowl on his bedroom dresser, I moved it to the kitchen counter, and bought a bigger, better container (thank you, Winners!) and then bought a third fish – also called Oliver.
We don’t have a filter – once a week scrub the inside with a dish-washing-thingie-on-a-stick, I siphon off the water with a piece of tubing, and put fresh water in with the tap. Ta-da! And they’re still alive after about a year – they seem happy. But I won’t cry if they die? It’s sometimes like that with fish, I reckon, right?
No more cats. They’d sit on my freshly ironed clothes before work, and stoke my anger-management issues… oy.
Bob and Doug are my brothers names! that is too funny.
no pets
a few fish that died
I feel like I have failed on that one
cutest story! And I get the whole family thing, xx
Chickie and I went shopping for her goldfish…we got one, a bowl and some gravel for the bowl…we got food…only noone told me about the drops for the water. Put her down for her nap and the fish was dead 15 minutes after I put it in the bowl with the new water….went back to the store and the guy tries to see me a filter…now way…we got a betta too! and the mirror thing is pretty funny and true!
Try putting a mirror up to the aquarium and Anthony will go to war with himself. This breed is so into killing itself off that they will try to destroy their own reflection.
They will puff up like a peacock and swim back and forth shooting dirty looks at themselves. Good fun for all and it gives Anthony something to do.
By the way I remember Corkey quite well. Not a conventionally handsome dog.
We bought our daughter a 10 gallon saltwater tank with two clownfish (Bob and Doug) about three months before she was born. Bob didn’t last long, but Doug just turned five, and Danica loves to watch all the little snails and crabs clean up the place while she’s settling down to sleep. In our big tank (55 gallons) we have Jack and Echo-Pleco. We’ve had them for ten years, now. Jack’s about 8″ long and recently killed is 10″ long tank-mate (Oscar). Evidently, 55 gallons is not enough room for two fish that big. I made the mistake of reminding the fish-store-guy that our fish were only about 1″ long when we bought them. I, too, am now familiar with the blank stare/awkward silence reserved for the uninitiated.
Happy fishkeeping!
I had a goldfish for 7 years without a filter we won it at Gerrard Square – well actually we all won one – so there were four and my brother said the last one was his – so tell the guy at the pet store to shove it!!! As for pets unfortunetly me and Brad are both allergic to anything that has fur – yes even the hypoallergenic ones…leave me in a room with a glass of milk and a cat and I would be dead in about 2 hours!!! I feel bad for my kids that we’ll never be able to own a dog – but with three kids and one left in diapers, I have no desire to pick up after a pet…
Enjoy Anthony… we’ll get some fish when Andrew knows not to put his hand in the tank….
so cute! i never had pets growing up and now i’m kind of nervous around cats/dogs. but i think i could handle a fish! Will looks so excited!