If You Have Nothing Nice to Say...Well, Follow Me

Following the sudden and tragic death of my brother’s two week old goldfish, Skippy, yesterday, I was reminded of the one and only time I’d had the imponderable joy of owning my very own, VERY short-lived goldfish.

I’d just turned eight, and my parents decided to take me to the local fair. Once we made our way past the drug dealers at the entrance, my dad slipped one dollar into my pocket and told me I could do whatever I wanted with it. Once the exasperating thrill of having so much money wore off, I decided to try my luck at winning a goldfish. Not that I really wanted a goldfish, but I had one fucking dollar, so it was either try to win a goldfish, or pay to take a Polaroid picture with one of those delightful pedophiles disguised as circus clowns.

So I approached the goldfish stand and handed the woman running it (whom I referred to as “Sir”) my entire net worth (one dollar) to try my luck at winning a forty seven cent goldfish. In order to win, I had to throw a ping-pong ball into the “special” cup. I spent about 2 minutes maneuvering myself (which pissed everyone off, much to my delight) to secure the perfect aim. I finally threw the ball, which wound up nowhere near the “special” cup. It was then and there that I learned that my aim was about as accurate a dollar store pregnancy test. My trembling, half-blind grandmother on Xanax could have gotten the ball closer to the cup. It was pathetic.

So, I lost. But that doesn’t mean I accepted defeat. I stomped my feet, flailed my arms, and loudly repeated the phrase: “not fair” until the woman had grown tired of the immature scene I was making and finally decided to just give me the fish to shut me up. I immediately changed my attitude, like a good little actor, and was thrilled that I’d “won” Clarence (yes, that’s the ridiculous name I had immediately given the fish).

Once I got it home and put it in its new home (which was a fucking punch bowl, because my parents were too cheap to buy me an actual fish bowl), the real fun began.

I was an AWFUL pet parent. I constantly tapped (and sometimes forcefully knocked) on the bowl, occasionally put a spoon the water to make a powerful whirlpool so I could watch Clarence spin around at great speeds, and I even occasionally put some fake fish figurines in there so he wouldn’t feel lonely (the entire bowl was full of fake fish in no time). It got to the point where Clarence hated me so much that he would often hide behind a rock and lie still each time I got close to the bowl. I guess he was trying to play dead like a fucking opossum and pray I would go away.  

My finest moment was when I thought Clarence looked a little dry (how a fucking fish in water looks dry is beyond my comprehension, but apparently it made perfect sense to my eight year old self), so I squirted about half a bottle of baby lotion into the bowl to moisten things up a bit.  

That was it. Clarence had finally had enough. Just as my mother picked up the punch bowl and was about to empty the lotion-infused water to replace it with clean water, Clarence JUMPED out of the fucking bowl and fell to his death in the bowl of cat-food below. That’s right folks, after having owned him for a mere 2 days, my fish committed suicide.