Fish Savior

My 9 yo daughter is a dog lover. I, on the other hand, am terrified of dogs. The Irresistible Force met the Immovable Wall. This time, the wall won. So no dogs. If I had my way, no pets of any kind. But then COVID-19 enforced lockdown became the norm, and more and more parents had to buy their kids toys… and pets. And so it came to be that we agreed to buy her a fish.

 

The pet shop guy pointed us to some fishbowls. There were three problems with the bowl option: (1) My daughter wanted a goldfish, and they need a tank, not a bowl; (2) A bowl felt too tiny; and (3) A bowl has curved glass on all sides, which distorts the appearance of the fish from literally every angle.

 

So we went for a tank instead. And one fish felt too lonely, so we bought two. At home, we carefully transferred them into the bowl following all the instructions on how to move them into their new environment (The water is different, its temperature is different etc). And when moving them into the tank, we had to give them stress medicine (yes, there is such a thing!).

 

We didn’t know whether to cover the tank, so we left it open. Bad idea. After some time, I happened to look up and saw something orange on the floor. My heart in my mouth, I rushed to see what it was. Yes, it was one of the goldfishes. My only previous experience of picking a fish that lay out of water told me they were very slippery... Luckily, a goldfish isn’t the least bit slippery. But I had no idea how long it had been lieing out of the water. Or if it was already dead… I tossed it back into the water, and held my breath. It began to swim. Whew! Close call. After that, of course, we keep a (cardboard) lid on the tank.

 

Fortunately, my daughter wasn’t around when this had happened. By the time I was telling her this, I added some masala. “See”, I said, “I’ve now saved 2 different fishes in my time”. Ergo, since this seems to have become a habit of sorts, I announced, “The fishes have now given me a title: Fish Savior”.

 

She was not amused. Which of course, only drove me to greater heights. A few days later, I translated one of the very few Tamil phrases I knew and told her that the fishes were building a temple for me. In the ocean. “Oh yeah”, she sneered, “With what are they building it?”. I surprised even myself with my response, “You know how coral reefs are built? They’re doing it like that”.

 

A few days later, angry about something, she told me that she’d cut me into pieces and feed me to the fishes (Who can remember why she says such things? More importantly, who cares?). “Go ahead”, I said, “If you do that, the fishes will say, “Even in death, he did something for us. The last act of the great Fish Savior”.

 

As you can see, I am enjoying the War of the Fishes. Mostly because I am winning…

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