- submitted by a.savona on 08/17/2009
A Goldfish "Friend" That Lives Forever?
By Anthony Savona
Really, our expectations were low. I mean, the fish was randomly pulled from a large cardboard box filled with clear plastic bags, each containing a single, living goldfish. The box was inside the gaming booth, and who knows how long they had been sitting out in the late-summer air.
I had always dreaded those games at carnivals. You know the ones: where you toss 15 or so ping pong balls at a pyramid of small glass bowls and, if you get one in, you win whatever prize is offered in the bowl, including living goldfish. The one I'm hoping my kids will get is the $5 bowl, so I can at least break even, but typically it's nothing, but on two occasions, it's been the fish.
The first time it happened was from a highly improbable shot from my daughter who had to be all of four years old at the time. Of course, it was the last of the ping pong balls that she and my sons were flinging, and it landed on one of the front rims and bounced high in the air and off to the other side of the booth.
Oh well, better luck next time kids. And we started to walk away.
But wait. The carny was calling us back. Apparently the ping-pong ball bounced over the top and into a bowl on the other side. A bowl containing a goldfish. The children were delighted -- the wife and I, not so much.
The fish survived the rest of the fair and dinner afterward. We got home and prepared a home for the fish using the supplies from past fish (store bought -- we're not that skilled at carnival games). We warned the children of the life expectancy of carnival fish, which is about the same as the seams on the knock-off stuffed animals they provide.
With expectations managed, we enjoyed the fish for a week or so before it expired. Apparently we did a good job of managing, because when I gently broke the news to my very sensitive daughter, her reaction was, "Can I flush it?"
Which brings us to prize fish #2. Pretty much the same story, only it was my oldest son this time and it didn't bounce in the back, but landed right in front with a definite "thud" that brought joy to the children and grunts from the wife and I.
We did a complete re-do of fish #1, complete with dim prognosis for survival. For the next few weeks, the ritual was each family member to walk into the kitchen, check the fish, and say, "Hey, he's still alive." My concern was that he'd be floating up top on a workday, and I'd have to miss the train while I took care of things, so the only optimism I had was that maybe he'd die on the weekend.
Weeks passed. My oldest son had named him "Kyogre" after a water-based Pokémon (naturally), but my daughter objected and changed his name every few weeks between "Fishy" and "Swimmy." Pretty much everyone has dropped the names based on his lack of answering to them, except for me: I still talk to him and call him Kyogre behind my daughter's back.
Oh yes, we became friends. A few weeks in, I developed a habit of tapping quickly on the glass in front of where I feed him, and he comes swimming up excitedly as I drop the flakes in. So we bonded, and that, I figured, was sure to be the death of him -- I'd gotten attached.
Months went by. Then a year. Now we are close to a second year, and some of his gold scales are looking silvery. I change his water every-other week, and get along splendidly.
So now that I've written this piece for all the internet to see, surely he can't last much longer. But maybe this is no ordinary fish that was just randomly grabbed and spent his days in bag in a box in a booth in a dusty carnival. Maybe he'll keep on going and going, and my kids can pass him and his story along to their kids.
And despite the fact that I like having Kyogre around, you may want to steer your kids toward the booths pushing Family Guy knock-offs. They are far easier to clean and feed, and have a shorter shelf life.
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If you take John Mellencamp's (or whatever he was called back then) song "Small Town," and changed the "small town" lyric to "suburbs," then you'd pretty much get Anthony Savona's life. Born and raised in the 'burbs, Anthony currently raises his family in suburbia and works in the Big City as Editorial and Creative Director for a mid-sized B2B publishing company.
If you Google his name (or the variation "Tony Savona"), he is the one credited with the book Console Confessions and the magazines EQ, Surround Professional, Car Sound & Performance, and so on. He is not the one involved in any class action lawsuits, the "DC Application Details" (whatever that is), or the Office Manager for Office of the Prime Minister (who really seems to be a Tony Savona that has made something of himself).
His essays have appeared in GQ magazine (a long time ago, but it still counts) and director Kevin Smith's unfortunately named entertainment news site, Movie Poop Shoot (now the less scatologically named Quick Stop Entertainment).
Anthony is currently writing a light-hearted story named 'Immediately Forgettable', which is about a man who has the lame super power of being forgotten the moment he leaves anyone's sight, and what he does with it. The story is a work-in-progress, with chapters being added as he finishes them to the website, Immediately Forgettable. Check it out and follow him on Twitter as @soforgettable, where he posts chapter updates and silly comments....read more rants
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