Belly Up

Our fish went belly up last night. Charlie still does not know. He is going to freak out once he realizes the "ish, ish, ish" is gone. Danny has now nicknamed me, "The Fish Killer." Mean, huh? I will take the responsibility of his death, though. I was really bad at remembering to feed him.

It happened like this...last night, Danny and I were about to go to bed when Danny looks over at the fish and says, "Seidi, the fish is dead!" I ran over only to find the fish kind of on its side but still moving.

"No he's not! He's still moving," I say.

"When was the last time you fed him?" questions Danny.

Very innocently, I answer, "I don't know."

"Well hurry and feed him. See if he'll eat." So I hurriedly poured some of his food in. The poor fish tried to swim toward it and happened to get a little bite of something. I continued to tap on his tank trying to encourage him up to his food. But, he couldn't make it. We took his tank to the bathroom and scooped him out to clean his water. Danny turned on the water and let it pour onto the fish. I think that's what really made him keel over because shortly thereafter, Danny noticed he was bleeding at the gills. Traumatizing. So sad. I almost started crying. "It's too late, Seids. He's a goner." He was going to make me do the dreaded flushing, but I couldn't. Thankfully, he took the container and poured it into the toilet.

As the fish was swirling down, I quietly said, "Goodbye, fish. Sorry I killed you." And just like that, he was gone.

Danny turns to me and says, "Fish killer. You better buy Charlie a new fish tomorrow before he notices he's gone. Fish killer." Then he starts laughing uncontrollably. Mean boy.

Seriously, I've never seen such a resilient fish. He was given to Charlie by his best friend, Benjamin Sorenson, when he moved to Tuscon. The fish was given to Ben for his 1st birthday in March. What 25 cent goldfish lives for 8 months????? So ridiculous. With that said, I am so sad that I killed the fish. Honestly, he was was not a hard pet to keep and I still managed to kill him off. So sad. Sarah and Ben, so sorry!! You should have taken him with you to Tuscon.