The Dog Fish Story

Part 1

The Dog Fish



I was trying to be a good Mom..., which can be hard sometimes..., but my boys really wanted pets. Now, we have pretty bad allergies so a cat is out of the question and I live in a condo so we can't have a dog and to be completely truthful ...I'm definitely not an animal person.



So we settle on Betta fish...of course we have to get one for each of them and my 5 yr old thinks that since they are both getting one I should too...which is really sweet of him but also means we need to get 3 separate bowls since they will fight and eat each other if they are in the same bowl.



So we get all the stuff and now I have three fish sitting here staring at me while I am typing this. Being that they aren't high maintenance all is well with the fish ...



UNTIL



..they all decide they are going to act like dogs. Yes. It’s true I now own three fish that think they are dogs. When I walk up to the bowls they come to the front of the bowl and ...umm... wag, I guess I would call it...their fins at me.



Now if you think this is funny ...listen to this ... they jump now too…yes, I know fish aren't supposed to act like this but the fish who think they are dogs now come to the front of the glass, wag their fins and jump a bit out of their water in anticipation of being fed.



Now the dilemma is that the boys decide we have to re name the fish to reflect their actions. I am now the proud owner of 3 fish, who are obviously in need of some serious pet counseling named Fido, Spike and Spot.







Part II





Now, I have come to grips with the fact that I am destined to have semi brain damaged fish ... but the saga continues...



Spike, dogfish #3, is swimming around have a grand ol' time for himself and I notice that his tail looks a little odd... I watch him for a while and come to the realization that something is wrong with his tail. It seems...shorter. Now, how I ask you, ...does a fish's tail get SHORTER?? Well. I will tell you ... the little sucker apparently has come down with a bacterial infection, that's how! So much for low maintenance pets. GEEESSSHHH. So off we go to the pet store and I talk to the "pet experts" and they inform me that the half-witted dogfish needs antibiotics. ANTIBIOTICS.... for a FISH ??????? Have you ever heard of such a thing?? This is in no shape or form what I ever expected, that's for darn sure. So now we have to get antibiotics for the fish and I have to change his water and keep a close eye on him for several days. We do that and he seems to get better.



But that's not the end of it.



A week later we have to go through it all again.... with Spot ... dogfish #2. And yes, you guessed it … a few days later Fido gets it too. Now please tell me ... how do 3 fish in 3 separate tanks get the same thing???



Did I mention ...I'm not a pet person





…And if you think that is too funny.... wait til’ you hear what happened with the lizards I got the kids for Christmas.









The Lizards



Chapter 1

How It All Happened

I know I promised ya’ll the lizard story but you have to understand the betrayal and what led up to it to truly appreciate the entire story. So a little more fish history and then on to the lizards….

There comes a point in most children’s lives when they want a pet. I dunno what I was thinking when I assumed that it wasn’t something I would have to deal with. I guess I figured that since both my oldest son and myself are allergic to most domesticated animals and it was never really a huge deal … at least not with him.

Now add a second child to the mix and we have a recipe for disaster … on several fronts. Said youngest son is not allergic to any animals that we know of which now makes the pet dilemma an issue. If it weren’t for the little one’s quick wit, charming personality, wonderful sense of humor and obvious intelligence … which, I know you will all agree comes directly from his mother … I would think that this child was switched at birth with some alien.

The youngest child has a temper the likes of which completely flabbergast his brother and myself… I don’t know where a temper like that could possibly have come from … and he also has mood swings that would rival any woman whom is going through menopause or suffering from PMS. Naturally, being that I am so calm, cool and collected at all times it makes me wonder … but that would be a story for another time.

That being said, I blame it all on him. We have had some conversation about him wanting a pet and the allergy excuses have worked pretty well up until the last part of last year when the sudden "need" for a pet seemed to rear it’s ugly head and wasn’t quelled by the usual excuses. So, we sat and talked about it … and of course I was assuming that we would go through the usual question and answer session … I would explain to him that we live in a condo so we couldn’t have a dog and we were allergic to cats, etc.

Well, the conversation goes pretty well and the usual excuses seem to work until … he pipes up and says … "what about fish?" Damn Nemo and all his Disney friends!!

I explain to him that we don’t have the money to get a tank and filters and all that but never the less the conversation now has turned into a full-fledged battle. Finally I decide that we will go to the pet store and look around and that should put an end to all this pet nonsense … never expecting to see MILLIONS and MILLIONS of Betta fish lined up in little tiny cups and the clerks singing the praises of such beautiful fish who are easy to care for and don’t require a tank or filters.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

When will those dumb part time high school students whom are probably trying to earn extra cash for college learn to keep their mouths shut!!!

Let me tell you this is where the little guy stays true to form and without missing a beat … or a single syllable uttered by the clerk …and I repeat … easy to care for and don’t require a tank or filters … turns to me with those big blue eyes … another trait he has been blessed with from his mother …. and says "puhleez mommy".

Several minutes later and a tantrum or two and we are walking out with not 1 of the slimy creatures … but 3!! Because it wouldn’t be fair for just one child to get one so of course the second one pipes up and starts with … "why does he get everything … just because he is the baby?" By this time I pretty much know I am screwed so what’s one more, right?

I just want to add one little tid-bit of info here … mine is the only one that hasn’t got fish tail rot, scum, ick, whatever –it-is…. yet



Chapter 2

Nature Club and What You Should Know BEFORE You Sign Up For IT

So now that you all have an understanding of how a person who detests pets came to be a pet owner you can appreciate the story of the lizards.

Naturally in the course of about a week I was the only one taking care of the fish, like ya’ll didn’t see that one coming right? So my oldest son, Joshua, brings home a sign up sheet for after school activities. There are several to choose from … the basic sports, which he has never had an interest in and then there is the school newspaper, gymnastics, etc. I scan through it and put it aside not paying it much more attention. It sits on the table for a week or so and one morning we are in the midst of the usual morning scrambling routine to get ready for school and Josh says to me "Mom, it’s the last day for after school activity sign ups". I look at him like he has 3 heads and wonder where this is going. He points out that there is a club offered called "Nature Club" and he wants to sign up.

Now, I have no problem with him signing up for an activity, even though it is $70.00 for 6 weeks, what I do have a problem with is him waiting until I am in the midst of melt down # 3 with the younger one, trying to make sure he has his back pack and now I can’t find my darn keys!! On top of it all, I now have to find my checkbook … good luck to that … and the sign-up sheet. YIKES! So I go digging through the pile of mail, of which I am sure some of it probably dates back to 1999, which is on the table looking for the sign up sheet and I send him to look for my checkbook… what the heck was I thinking … you now how it is when you send someone else to look for something that is out in plain sight… they can’t find it. I finally get the check written, the sign up sheet filled out and we are now going to be late for school.

About mid-day it suddenly hits me … MY son has signed up for nature club. Nature club? What the heck do they do in nature club and what could possibly interest my son in it?? I assume that it must be …well...stuff about nature, ya know, trees, weather, hiking, etc, etc.

WRONG!!! I should know better than to assume anything. Some times that natural blonde I used to be just comes shining on through.

When Josh gets home I decide to ask him exactly what I have just payed $70.00 for and he proceeds to inform me that Mr. White, one of the Science teachers has a room full of …. You guessed it … ANIMALS and they learn to care for them, feed them, etc.

Now I know that I am all done. There is no turning back I have just entered the Twilight Zone and taken up permanent residence there.

I am unsure whether I should be happy that he has taken an interest in something or just break out the Southern Comfort and declare that it is what I’m having for dinner.

So nature club starts and sure enough the poor kid comes home the first day his eyes red, swollen and itchy, his nose running and declaring that the animals are really cool. Uh oh!! He proceeds to tell me about the Guinea Pig named Enrique, Darwin the 6 ft Iguana, Isaac the Gecko and Rupert the bunny as well as several other misc animals like the turtles and the frogs.

Now correct me if I am wrong but most schools have a DARE program and as parents we all know the importance of talking to our kids about staying away from drugs. So why, I ask you, do I have to dope up my kid and have him smuggle over the counter prescription medication to school in order to be able to take care of animals after school? It just seems so wrong to me.

After a couple weeks of this he tells me that he is solely in charge of taking care of Isaac the Fat Tailed Leopard Gecko. Over the course of a couple more weeks I am now thoroughly convinced that I am an expert authority, albeit an unwilling one, on the care of Leopard Geckos.

So… the saga with the fish starts and off to the Pet Store we go to talk to the "experts", who you will recall are high school kids, to find out what we need to do about the fish tail rot, scum, ick and much to my chagrin they also carry a full line if reptiles. Oh joy! Joshua calls me over to a huge terrarium with several baby Leopard Geckos and another one that has a full grown one. Now as much as I want to hate the buggers… I have to admit, and I know this will come back to haunt me, that the little buggers are kinda cute.

That, my dear friends, is the real beginning of the end!

Now we are approaching Christmas and I ask the kids to make out the mandatory lists which I collect and decide to sit and look over after they have gone to bed one night and the only thing on Joshua’s list is … drum roll please… a Leopard Gecko. Now Joshua is a smart kid and knows that I will consider most things, within reason and if I know that he really wants something bad enough I will put a good word in for him with Santa. I shake my head and know that I am beaten.







Chapter 3

The Take Over Begins

So you can see my newest problem. I have a 13 yr old that is hell bent on the Leopard Gecko and no real good reason we can’t get one, especially since he hasn’t asked for anything else for Christmas. Man, I sure taught him how to get what he wants and precisely how to do it, didn’t I?

So off I go to the pet store, my head hung low and my feet dragging and flag down the first "expert" I can find. I inform him of my plan and instruct him that I want to get everything I will need for a happy little gecko to thrive, yes I am naïve enough to believe that not only am I capable of buying one but it will actually live long enough to thrive. He loads up a 30 gallon terrarium, because they are naturally out of anything smaller, puts it down and asks me if I want to get the gecko and the crickets now or am I going to wait. I am sure the bewildered look on my face was absolutely priceless because I know I saw a smirk on his face.

CRICKETS !! Ya know when you’re planning something out and you know what you have to do but you don’t realize the enormity of the situation until it actually happens? This is what happened here. I knew that geckos eat crickets. How did I think that this was going to happen? Well, you feed the little stinkers to the geckos naturally … but the real question here folks is …. How do you do that? I hadn’t thought this out that far ahead and now I am standing there looking at this kid, whom I know is going to go home and call all his friends and tell them about the stupid chic, if he uses a term that nice, in the store today who didn’t have a clue what she was doing wondering where the heck he expects me to put crickets for 4 days until Joshua can open his presents. My blondness is doing me in and I know it. As I sit there and let the question sink in he then says well, do you plan on raising them or buying them every couple of days?

Ok first off … who ever said there was going to be geckos ?? I said gecko, singular not plural and secondly ... every couple of days … what a pain in the butt this is going to be. He leads me down an aisle and points out all the wonderful products they have so we can raise our own crickets … or at least buy them in bulk so we don’t have to run to the pet store every couple of days. Oh boy, I can hardly wait now !! I ask him how much he really knows about the nasty little beast that I have agreed to have as a pet and he replies that he has 2 of his own. I ask him what he does ...which is …. Can ya guess? but of course … raise your own! So he grabs another small container, cricket food and all the trimmings and throws them on in with everything else.

Folks, it was a sad day, if you could have seen me I know you would all sympathize. Feet dragging, shoulders slumped I made my way to the cash register and after dropping $200.00 bucks and having the kid load it all in my truck I slowly made my way home.

Again, I have to stress the obvious error I have made in judgment about the whole thing and as much as it pains me, I will point out the glaring mis-calculations on my part. I make it home and pop the back of the truck and stare at the 30 gal tank filled with approximately 100 + lbs of gecko and cricket paraphernalia. Now to get the full effect you have to picture this, there I am standing there, in the snow, outside my condo building, leaning on my cane staring into what as well may be that gates of hell because there is NO conceivable way I can get this crap up 2 flights of stairs to my unit with a bad leg and only one hand to carry it all.

I usually tend to stay pretty much to myself other than the mandatory niceties that you have to exchange with your neighbors in the hallways. I have a drunken girlfriend beater on one side of me, some older lady that when she forgets to take her medication can’t find her own unit on the other side of me and a host of other dysfunctional people whom I am forced to call my neighbors. The conclusion I come to … I am going to have to suck it up and actually ask one of these people for help. I rule out the lost lady, as we refer to her, since no one even knows her name and we aren’t sure she would even know what it is if we asked, because God only knows what unit she would bring that stuff to. The girlfriend beater is out of the question because that would require I have to actually speak civilly ( – spelling is right) to the man and after the things I have heard go on in his unit… this is completely out of the question.

As I stand there staring at all the crap that has just cost me half a mortgage payment and I contemplate backing the truck into a tree and hope that it will shatter all this stuff and then I can blame it on the weather, James the property manager pulls into the parking lot and parks next to me. He takes one look at me and without a "hi" or anything asks what the trouble is. I laugh, if he only knew! Instead of bursting into tears I do the polite thing and explain the situation to him and he graciously offers to carry it all up for me.









Chapter 4

Merry Freakin’ Christmas

Just a small legal note first, the names of the guilty participants have not been changed to protect the guilty so they can be persecuted for my extreme mental anguish over this situation as anyone sees fit.

There we are standing at my door … poor James is four shades of purple because the stuff is so heavy and I have visions of some bizarre lawsuit involving James having a hernia and dieing at my doorstep… when we finally get in and James looks at me and asks "So where do you want it". Now James is a good looking man and we flirt back and forth so under any other circumstances this would be a loaded question but the situation has defeated me so I just don’t have it in me to come up with any smart ass comment. Besides that … I have no idea where to put this crap so I am in a little bit of a predicament. Like that’s anything new.

Trying to keep my cool I tell him to just put it down by the table and I will worry about it later. DUMB ASS!! I have no idea how I am going to move this stuff, much less hide it for 4 days from 2 of the nosiest kids in the world… a trait from their father’s side of course. I have 45 minutes before the little one will be home from school to figure it out and as any parent will tell you … I can’t, under any circumstances, let him know what I got Joshua or I am all done. He would tease Joshua to no end and by the end of the night tell him what I’ve done so if I have any hope of surprising Joshua, I have to come up with a plan … and FAST!!!

Hiding it all in a closet is out of the question because the one closet we have that is big enough for this stuff is used as a "toy room". It won’t fit under the bed or behind a couch without it being obvious there is something there. Then, it finally hits me … kids are the laziest creatures on Earth and for once I am going to use it me advantage. YES !! I am a woman on a mission now.

Taking all things into consideration I decide that the best hiding place is right out in plain site. Am I a genius or what? Wait … don’t answer that. There is a corner in my dining area where Joshua tends to throw his jacket when he comes in … I think hangers must scare the poor boy because I have never known him to use one … and there is a collection of books, school paraphernalia and various other piles of junk. So I know damn well if I don’t tell him to pick this stuff up there isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that he will do it on his own. Right?

So I push the tank with all the supplies over to the corner, cover it in all the crap that is there and stand back to admire my bit of brilliance. My first thought is …man that pile is pretty big … and pretty high. I figure since it’s Christmas now is as good a time as any to become religious so I drop to my one good knee and pray, "Please, God, goddess or anyone else up there that will listen, if you’re there … please don’t let Joshua have a moment of clarity and try to do something nice for me by cleaning that corner out. Please let him be his usual, oblivious self and not even notice that pile."

So I wait a minute, truly expecting to burst into flames or have some hole open up in the floor and swallow me up whole but it doesn’t happen … now for the real test. Cory should be home any minute and if anyone is going to blow it for me … it will be him. Cory walks in, tosses his coat on the floor and heads right for the TV. By George, I think I have pulled it off !

The next couple of days are nerve wrecking to say the least. Every time one of the kids even approaches the corner I cringe. Finally we make it Christmas Eve! Hallelujah !! We are winding down from a day of visiting and last minute errands when all hell breaks loose. Cory goes running across the room, near the pile, and steps right on … a Lego. Now, this is another one of those things that you have to truly experience to appreciate. Stepping on just the right sized Lego just the right way when you least expect it… my experience is usually sometime in the middle of the night on the way to the bathroom … can feel like the equivalent of …well… I can’t think of anything I can write that won’t get me banned … but you get the picture.

So the boys are going at it and Cory is screaming at Joshua that if he would pick his stuff up this wouldn’t have happened. It continues for another 10 minutes or so and I decide that before a neighbor calls DSS it is time to intervene. I stand up and at the top of my lungs bellow to both of them to pick all their stuff up. Oh dear God, no, did I actually say that? Please tell me I didn’t say that. I stand and watch in horror as Joshua walks over to where the pile is, picks up the Lego and proceeds to pick up the jacket on the top of the pile. Panic sets in…I have to do something quick I have not come this far to have it all ruined. So I turn, stare at them both and as I feel myself transform into some kind of maniacal banshee I scream at the top of my lungs for them to both go to their rooms and get into bed. Merry Christmas boys.

They both stare at me, wondering what exactly has caused me to freak out on them and they retreat to their bedroom in silence. Well all I can say is thankfully this didn’t happen at 2 in the afternoon. I sit there and decide that I have to follow through and put them to bed but since it’s 10:30 I don’t feel so bad about it. I go and tuck them in …and now that waiting game begins.





Chapter 5

The Waiting Game

So there I sit…waiting to make sure they have fallen asleep so I can pull all the presents out, put them under the tree and finally revel in a well deserved, drug induced sleep. Sometime around 1 am I crawl into bed and I swear before I am not lying there even 10 minutes and I hear something. Voices! The two of them are standing at the edge of bed and both trying to decide how they are both going to crawl into bed with me without waking me up. Well, jokes on them I sit straight up and yell, "Boo!!" I think they both peed their pants. Joshua and I start laughing, Cory starts crying and we all snuggle into bed and try to go to sleep.

Nope, not happening, so at 3:30 we finally get out of bed and head for the Christmas tree. I make them wait down the hall while I go into the living room and turn the Christmas lights on … good thing for them I don’t have to get into the bathroom and shave before I let them come down like my father did to us every single Christmas morning . I give the ok and they both come running down the hall… I am sure the downstairs neighbor loved hearing that in the middle of the night … Cory runs to "his side of the tree" and Joshua takes 3 steps and stops dead in his tracks. I really thought the kid was going to pass out. He just stands there and stares. Watching him, I am trying to figure out what is going through his head … then after another couple of minutes I get concerned because it really doesn’t look like he is breathing. I think it was a solid 5 minutes that he just stood there and didn’t move or speak then he finally turns to me and the tears start streaming down his face. Ya know you’ve done well when they are reduced to tears like that and haven’t even opened anything.

Joshua comes over to me, wraps his arms around me and sobs, "You’re the best Mom in the world, I love you" VICTORY IS MINE !! It’s funny how an ordeal like that can all suddenly be so worth it in with just a couple little words. Cory is thrilled with his toys, Josh is floored by his Gecko stuff and I spend the rest of the day putting together toys and reading all about Leopard Geckos.

Life is good… at least until we try to figure out where a 30 gal terrarium is going to go.