Fish

This is my cousin’s new fish.



She had some old fish, but uh, as she said, “They didn’t work out so well.” So she got this new fish, and can you see from the pictures that this fish has a little fishy fro? He totally does. I tried to take a picture to show you, but fish aren’t so good at sitting still while you are trying to take a picture. They are so uncooperative. And digital cameras? Don’t so much like moving things. So I know the pictures are a little blurry, but can you tell that the fish totally has a fro? This amuses me so.

This fish also reminded me of a fish I once had. (Mom, stop reading right now, I know it’s still hard for you.) I won the fish at a Chinese New Year festival with my Chinese friend. The fish was a goldfish and I called him Julius, cause he was orange. Are there Orange Julius stores all over the country or just here? Cause that name is only witty if you have an Orange Julius store in your mall. If you don’t, well then it’s just a name.

So anyways, Julius was the best fish. If you put your finger in the water he would come up and kiss it. Now that I think about it maybe Julius was just underfed and not cute. But either way, I did enjoy that fish. But what I didn’t enjoy was cleaning his bowl. So the bowl got dirty a lot, and mom got angry about it a lot. One day mom got tired of looking at the moldy bowl and she cleaned it herself, she even added new rocks, cause his old rocks were so gross. This cleaning was the beginning of the end for old Julius.

He started getting a little sluggish, and I wondered what was wrong with him, cause he was usually such a happy little fish. After a few days of Julius barely moving in the water mom realized that she had put some sort of weird rocks in the bowl that had some sort of chlorine or something on them. Future reference: Fish and chlorine don’t mix well.

Mom felt horrible. But not as bad as Julius. Even after we put him in a new bowl he continued his swim towards the bright light. One day mom and I were walking in from outside, her in front of me, and she stopped dead in her tracks and whipped around to face me. By the look on her face I thought perhaps the house was on fire or our whole family lay dead in the living room. But no. “Honey, go back outside, I’ll take care of it.” “What?” “It’s Julius. I’m sorry.” To which I said, “Mom, I’m 17 years old. I think I’m going to be okay about the fish.”

Poor mom, she never quite forgave herself for killing that little fish. But he was a goldfish I won at a street fair and he was alive for over a year. I think little Julius had a great run. And given the track record of my cousin and fish, Julius is going to have a fro’ed friend up in the big bowl in the sky real soon.