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GenePool
Humor
The Miracle
of Fish
Last Christmas, despite my repeated entreaties,
we bought my daughter an aquarium.
The thing was, she asked for one. She's getting
to that age now (twelve) where it's actually a bit difficult to
shop for her, by which I mean we have to actually put some thought
into the gifts rather than just filling a shopping cart with whatever's
in aisle three of Toys R Us. So when she goes through the trouble
of asking for something that A: is affordable, and B: can actually
be bought and wrapped... well, we had to do it.
Still, I was reticent, because I don't trust
aquariums. More to the point, I don't trust my wife when it comes
to aquariums. Or fish. Especially fish.
As live beings in our household who require
our active care, Deb naturally considers fish to be pets. I don't
think anything that can be accidentally swallowed should rightly
be considered a pet, but I am not in charge of pet declarations
in our home. So invariably, when it comes time to make important
calls regarding whether fish should continue to live despite the
great expense they can represent (trust me) or die following a
tragic accident involving the blender, Deb falls on the side of
life every time.
Problems started almost immediately. The tank
we bought was inadequate-- according to those in charge of such
things-- because it was too small, too hard to clean, and held
too few fish. Or something. I really wasn't paying attention.
What I did pay attention to was the announcement that we were
going to have to buy a larger tank. I always pay attention when
additional expenditures are involved.
In short order we had a much larger tank set
up in an entirely different part of the house: the kitchen counter.
Because the ten gallon tank wasn't going to fit where the adorable
little three gallon tank comfortably sat in Becky's bedroom. Along
with the big tank came plants, a heating system, and a filter
system, and possibly also a jacuzzi and cabana boy. Again, wasn't
paying attention.
Then all hell broke loose.
For a full comprehension of the aforementioned
broken-loose hell, we must first turn to my son and his school.
At some point late in the school year, Timmy and his class made
their own little ecosystems. This involved taking a two liter
Coke bottle-- because all natural ecosystems begin with two liter
Coke bottles, in case you didn't know-- and cutting it in half.
In the bottom half was placed water, some algae, a mosquito fish,
and a snail. The top half was filled with dirt, some plants, and
a live cricket. Then, the top half was stuffed into the top half,
so that the fish was in an enclosed environment with nothing to
look at except the dirt sticking out of the Coke bottle mouth.
Then it was taped together.
I would rather have never known anything about
my son's ecosystem. I'd rather they took it to the final step
on the last day of school and announced that since each child
had been granted the opportunity to play God with their own personal
life forms, it was now time to pretend they were Vengeful Old
Testament God and flush everything down the Holy Toilet.
But no. He brought it home.
In the angry letter I plan to write very soon
to the Cambridge public schools, I'll be pointing out what a drastic
error it is to bring new live creatures into my home without my
permission. Bonding quickly ensued.
The whole concept behind a self-sufficient
ecosystem is that it's self-sufficient. Which is great- and cheap--
up until it is no longer self-sufficient, which is when the whole
thing gets declared a Superfund site by my wife, and drastic measures
follow. She started feeding the fish. Not a big deal at first,
except that we really would have been better off had the mosquito
fish simply died of natural causes by, say, running out of food
on its own or accidentally getting thrown into the back yard or
something.
Later, we had a full ecosystem meltdown, when
the water in the Coke bottle got so scummy and nasty that the
fish was no longer entirely visible. Actions were taken to move
the fish and the snail-- the cricket died rather quickly of (I
swear) natural causes-- into the big tank with Becky's fish.
Then something really weird happened. The mosquito
fish reproduced. So did the snail. Now, I thought I was pretty
clear on the whole idea of reproduction, having been nominally
involved in the production of two children myself, and I'm pretty
positive Deb couldn't have done that without me. Yet, there we
were, with a tank full of an indeterminate number of baby mosquito
fish and snails thanks to, apparently, immaculate conception.
Nowadays a new birth happens every other week
or so. We have no control over the process at all. We've tried
removing the males and giving them away, but whenever the females
still in the tank decide to have more babies, they just do. I'm
guessing we're only a month or two away from Deb's formal announcement
the ten gallon tank is too small, and we're going to have to look
into gettting a twenty gallon tank which, given the exponential
increases we're seeing, should last six months max.
Or, we could just let nature take it's course.
This is what I'm hoping for. I figure if they keep making more
babies eventually they'll figure out that there isn't enough space
and start eating the newborns. (Becky's fish might already be
doing this; it's impossible to tell.) It could be a family bonding
sort of thing, getting together and placing bets on which baby
gets eaten first. That'd be fun and also educational. And it'd
almost make having the tank worth it. Almost.
© 2003, Gene Doucette
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