Thursday, October 18, 2007

R.I.P.

Revenge of the Goldfish by Sandra Skoglund

Ahhhh, Zeus, we hardly knew ye!

Yes, it’s true. We are in deep mourning today for our dear departed carnival goldfish, Zeus, who passed away last night in his sleep. Well, his eyes were still open, so maybe it was not in his sleep.

You may recall that I wrote about the nasty trick some lady played on us loving adoption story of how Zeus came to live with us. I could link to it, but heck, its only four posts down. Scroll to it yourself, slacker!

Thankfully, I had warned Noah that this was likely to happen after a week or two. Well, he made it all of five days. Five glorious days!

I had read up on what goldfish need. TEN gallons of water per goldfish!! Geez Louise! We gave him just shy of a gallon, as we have limited safe places where climbing toddlers cannot reach, nor did we want to invest a lot of money into a fish we never wanted to take home in the first place.

I wanted to spiff up his little cage cozy home, so I turned half an Easter egg into a little cave, and popped in a little plastic tree from Noah’s little Fisher Price Barnyard set. I hope that gave him some solace from the desolation of our kitchen counter.

Noah asked if he could see Zeus one last time, and when I explained that fish want to go “back to the ocean when they die” and how we make that happen, he was irate that he didn’t get to see a dead body saddened that he had missed the funeral.

So, fair thee well, our dear friend, and lifelong five-day-long companion!

Godspeed on your final swim to the ocean!!

4 comments:

Snowbird said...

May He/She rest in peace. I'm sorry that Noah had to learn the facts of fishy life so early though. You didn't really say but I assume that Zeus got the Royal Flush!!

Anonymous said...

Oh well...

I suspect he felt that he wasn't welcome, goldfish are very perceptive. Unfortunately with that whole 3 second memory deal they rarely remember what it was they perceived.

Shama-Lama Mama said...

Yeah, I read about that three second memory thing when I googled about why he was gulping for air so much (not a good thing, I tell ya!)

So I guess he was thinking...
"I am perceptive enough to know I am not really wanted here."

"Where am I?"

I don't know, but I am perceptive enough to know I am not really wanted here."

"Where am I?"

"I don't know..."

I guess we should have named him Dory after the fish with no longterm memory in "Finding Nemo". Was that a big hit down under Willowtree?

Mom... yes. The Royal Flush.
(swish!!!!!)

Anonymous said...

oh zeus. you were nice while you lasted....

we had about 4 goldfish from carnivals like that. each lasted about 2 weeks. and all were named goldy. made it feel like it was the same fish.

[love the picture.]