Fish Tale

Fish Tale
By Marty 7-29-2004

I recently won a beautiful fish bowl, holder and two goldfish at a Bunko game. The fish bowl, is only a simply round glass bowl. But the holder that it sits on is what is outstanding. The holder is a large fancy fin goldfish made of wood and on the top of the fish bowl it has a wooden ring that has fish scales carved into it. It was only fitting that it had the goldfish to swim in it.

The grand-kids were here at the house when I brought the fish bowl and holder home. Ethan and Daniel, both boys are five years old, took a quick look and then were off playing again. It didn’t make a big impression with them. Now Taylor (age seven) and Kelsey (age six) that is another story. They are all into having pets. Taylor and Kelsey were trying to pet the two fish as they swam in the bowl. Someone must have petted a little too hard because the next morning I had found that one fish had died during the night. The surviving fish was named “Jaws.” Both of the girls were fascinated with Jaws and all though they are not allowed to pet him, they will still stick their little fingers in the bowl. They think that when Jaws swims up to their fingers he is giving them kisses. Of course he is only looking for food, but you would never convince the girls that it was not kisses.

I keep Kelsey and Ethan on Saturdays so that my daughter Belinda can work. When the two children are playing, they always stick together. They had been playing in the house for about an hour, when Kelsey decided she would get some fish kisses. So up on top of the table she went. Ethan had only seen the fish from standing on the floor and at this view the fish is magnified about three times larger. So not to be out done by his sister who was on the table, he climbed onto a chair and then on to the table. As he got closer to the fish, the magnification was disappearing and soon he saw the true size of Jaws. Ethan said with a shocked tone to his voice, “Nonnie, he got little! What did you do to him?” Ethan was amazed that the fish had always been that small.

It is very hard to explain to a five-year-old, how magnification works in water. I noticed that the rest of the day Ethan would keep glancing at the fish bowl in disbelief of the size of the goldfish. I know that in his little mind he must have thought that I was still doing a trick with the fish. Maybe I was switching a larger fish to a smaller one, when he wasn’t looking. I had a good laugh from watching his puzzled expression on his face as he would check out the fish. Maybe this is a fish story that runs true to most fish stories. “The fish in the story is all ways larger than it truly is in real life.”