My good friend Reol became an aunt yesterday!! It’s a girl! Ten fingers! Ten toes! Never has a baby’s arrival been so longed for and so well timed. I didn’t want to be pushy, but I did ask if they had any names in mind. Apparently, they’re still thinking about it, so I gently reminded them that nothing rolls off the tongue like “Bosemary".
Not long after receiving the great news, I was peering into our fish tank to verify the continued existence of a baby fish we discovered in there a couple of weeks ago. He’s more of a toddler now, really, frisky and increasingly fearless. He looks kinda like this.
Now, when we first got the tank, we bought three wagtail platys to “cycle” it. After observing their behaviour, we christened them Lesbian (for she was butch-looking and ignored the attentions of the male), Low Self-Esteem (for she followed the male around constantly, while he chased after Lesbian) and Butthead (the male). Sex occurred in our tank, people, and we attempted to rescue some of the fry, but always to no avail. The ones left in the tank got eaten by the parents, the ones we took out of the tank died and the one we took out of the tank, nursed back to health and put back into the tank got eaten by the parents. Then Butthead died and there were no more little ones and that’s how we liked it. Because the circle of life is emotionally exhausting.
A couple of months ago, bored with our crochety old fish and disturbed by the suspicious disappearance of 5 of our 7 neon tetras, we decided it was time for some cute new sunset platys. Unfortunately, Jen at the pet store gave us more boys than girls (you usually want two females per male, ‘cause those guys - they rock out with their cocks out). The lack of available females encouraged some of our younger buttheads to try and make it with the old lady wagtails - a sight hilarious to behold, as Lesbian and Low Self-Esteem are both at LEAST 3 times as big as the young sunsets. Anyway - it soon became clear that the two girl sunsets, Lie Back & Think of England and Tarty, were knocked up and when we found Toddler lurking in the plants, we were pleased to see that a baby had made it to toddler-hood with no ham-handed “help” from us. It’s a giant-catfish-chews-your-ass-off world in our tank, so Toddler’s survival is pretty noteworthy. A few days later, I noticed another baby, smaller and yellower, hanging around with Toddler and was again impressed by her resourcefulness. I figured that the birthing was over for now and decided to overfeed our grownup fish just a little bit, to keep them off the kids.
So yesterday, flush from the news of Reol’s aunt-hood, I was checking out the fish. I saw Toddler, I saw the little yellow baby and then - THEN - I saw a BRAND NEW FISH. It was tiny! It was frisky! It was pinging all over the tank! It was eaten by a tetra! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!! And then there was another one! Tiny! Frisky! Smarter! It dove for the plants and disappeared! YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!
I scanned the tank, trying to figure out which sunset platy was the latest mom. Both of them were acting a little weird, sitting at the back of the tank, then zinging all over the place and I decided that I had better catch the mom, put her in our little in-tank breeding net and try and save whoever I could. I got the net. I got the other net. I sat down and watched as little babies came out of nowhere, enjoyed their brief taste of freedom and then were consumed by the other fish. I strained my eyes, trying to catch a sunset in the act, when Lesbian swam into my sightline. “Lesbian!” I hissed, “Get out of the way!” Lesbian looked me over, turned her back and swam away, leaving in her wake a trail of teeny, tiny baby platys. “LESBIAN!” She turned around. “What?” “You SLUT!” She just wiggled at me, birthed another couple of fry, then spun around lazily and chowed down. Clearly, when we christened her “Lesbian", we were projecting. From now on, we’ll be calling her “Cradle-Robbing Cougar".
I managed to capture two of the infant fish and put them in our little isolation net. The others were eaten or escaped into the foliage, where they were no doubt eaten later on. And now, every 5 to 7 minutes, I get up and go over to the fish tank and just . . . hover. You people are lucky that I’m never going to have actual children or even fuzzy pets. My blog would end up looking like this.
Comments:
I really enjoyed reading your short takes on life!! Thank you for writing them, and for sharing them. I have no idea how I came to this blog site…wandered in, so to speak, but I I love your easy conversational style of writing. Best wishes, RC
Comment by bob colgan — Saturday, April 30, 2005
Hey, thanks, RC! Your comments have made my day! (And I’m sorry my “comment” process is confusing . . . darn WordPress . . .)
Comment by Rose — Saturday, April 30, 2005