Something Fishy

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable. - C.S. Lewis

Although the populous have requested details regarding daily life, school, and college, a story about a new member of our family is in order. Sir Tirian of the Lateral Lines is the sole survivor of a most tragic fishicide. For VBS (which, by the way, was about Jonah), I, Julie, bought forty feeder fish in order to gift two fish to each student in keeping with the water theme of the week. By the very next morning, twenty-one fish had perished from lack of oxygen. Fellow passengers in the Carlson bus subjected the nineteen survivors to brutal jokes. One helper at VBS even became the ultimate "floater fish" in honor of the deceased. Susie and I judged that placing an emotional bomb into the laps of dozens of mothers would be cruel and unusual. Not wishing to break the eighth amendment of our national Constitution, we agreed upon a plan which would place the burden of the emotional trama upon the shoulders of the main perpetrator - I was to adopt all nineteen fish. The subsequent scarring will require both time and counselling . . . Within the following week, I sent fifteen innocent creatures of the sea back to the sea (or the septic, as the case may be). Equipped for such difficulties with the quote above, I endured the agony of this situation with outward composure and a peaceful countenance, and sought to bury myself in work in order to reduce grief. After a week, I allowed myself and my siblings the pleasure of naming the remaining specimens, and so Alex, Cal, Gumpus, and Tirian joined the growing ranks bearing the name Carlson. When you name a pet, the line of disattachment is permenantly crossed. Further, I realized that I was becoming particularly attached to Tirian, the runt who was transparent (i.e. You can see right into him). This would not work. And so, to help the situation, I bought another beta fish for our bedroom, hoping that this one would steal my affections since beta fish generally have a longer lifespan than feeder fish. Unfortunantly, the beta fish did not help. True love would not be displaced. As Gumpus, then Alex, and finally Cal joined the swimmers invisible, Tirian remained the sole feederfish survivor of the forty unhappy victims.

Since Sir Tirian of the Lateral Lines was promoted to king of the bowl, he has honestly become our puppy guppy. His bowl sits on our ledge window right in front of the sink, and he will NOT allow us to forget his royal highness. As soon as a family awakens and turns on the kitchen light, he darts about the bowl hoping to draw our attention to him. Once he's gained an audience, he pantomimes eating food and then darts to the edge of the tank in hopes that our eyes will rest upon the bottle of fish food on the right of his bowl. If, during this state of frenzy, his feeder speaks in high, excited tones, and moves their finger around the rim of the bowl, Tirian's excitement pushes beyond bounds. Finally, food is sprinkled onto the surface of the water, and in his extreme extacy, Tirian often jumps out of the water feasting his eyes upon the entrees laid before him.

However, Sir Tirian has a well-hidden secret - he suffers from acute lavophobia (fear of cleaning). Everytime his tank needs cleaning, Tirian acts in his melodramatic way like a fish out of water. Somehow, the Chinese food container filled with old water straight from his tank is not good enough for nobility. It requires a whole day and a half for him to recover from the tramatic experience, because although the whole process takes only thirty minutes until he is returned to his natural habitat, he hoplessly fears a recurrence of the cleaning and almost looses his otherwise voracious appetite. Finally, after his short term memory effects blockage of the painful memory, Sir Tirian returns to his usual self - ravenous, egocentric, and otherwise adorable!