Crispy: A Fish Tale
No matter how little time you think you have with a pet fish, ultimately it seems you have even less. Except in the case of Crispy.
Yes, Crispy.
Don’t blame me; my then-five-year-old son Wesley named him..or her… I don’t know how to tell the gender of a goldfish.
In any case, Crispy came to us through a carnival, by lobbing ping pong balls at glass cups. By some twist of fate, I managed to land a ball squarely in one of the cups, and the game attendant handed me a goldfish in a plastic bag of water, and a small container of food that would likely last all of three days, two days longer than I expected the fish to last.
We headed off on our way to the car, with me trying to shield the fish from the ninety-degree heat and from Wesley repeatedly wanting to look at his new pet.
I drove home with one hand on the steering wheel and one hand on the fish in a bag perched in the cupholder.
Not surprisingly, when we got home, the fish looked less than healthy. Still, I got out the biggest glass bowl I could find and filled it with water, dumped the fish in, and offered a little food. He nibbled at the food and seemed a little happier in the bowl, so I thought maybe he’d make it till morning.
“What should we name him?” Wesley asked.
“I don’t know,” I replied, not wanting him to get too attached. “What’s a good name for a fish?”
In no time at all, he said, “Crispy.”
“Crispy. Crispy Fish.”
“Uh huh.”
And so he was christened Crispy Fish.
Crispy led a quiet existence, as fish tend to do. Wesley watched him faithfully for the rest of that day and about half of the next. Then he grew bored because Crispy just ate, pooped, and swam around.
By the end of the next day, Crispy was still going strong, and I realized that I would likely have to upgrade his living quarters and buy him some more food. So off we went to the store for a small fishbowl and some fish food.
When we got home, Wesley noticed that Crispy was acting strangely. Instead of swimming around like he had been, now he was kind of swimming sideways and drifting toward the surface.
Of course he was.
Still, I transferred him to his new home and let Wesley feed him. He seemed a little better, so I reasoned that maybe he just needed a more suitable home.
And so, over the next week or so, Crispy did what pet fish do: he swam, he ate, he pooped, and he stared back at Wesley with his googly eyes.
But still, he had moments of turning on his side and rising to the surface, and those moments seemed to last longer and longer, until one morning when I came out to the kitchen and saw poor Crispy in a dead float.
I wondered how Wesley would take the news that Crispy was no more. Before I could decide how to best break it to him, he entered the kitchen and came over to the fishbowl.
“What’s wrong with Crispy?” he asked, peering into the bowl and giving him a tentative poke with a chubby finger.
Deciding it was best to just be honest, I said, “Well, fish usually don’t live very long. I’m afraid he’s dead.”
I needn’t have worried about being blunt; his fish’s passing didn’t seem to faze him in the least. “Are you going to bury him?”
I returned Wesley’s earnest look as I considered my response. Crispy was tiny; it certainly wouldn’t take much effort to dig a small grave in the back yard. Still, the weather remained hot and humid, and besides, I didn’t want to chance attracting all the neighborhood cats and other wildlife. In the end, I decided we’d give Crispy the tried and true water burial that pet fish had received for decades.
With little fanfare, I picked up the bowl containing Crispy, and Wesley followed me down the hall toward the bathroom. However, halfway there, Crispy seemed to make a miraculous recovery. He sprang to life and began swimming happily around the bowl again. “Mommy, Crispy’s okay!”
“I see that.” I gave the little faker the evil eye as we returned to the kitchen and set the bowl back on the counter. Wesley sprinkled a little food in the bowl and watched Crispy intently, giving him more attention than he had since the day the little creature had come home with us.
For the rest of the day, Crispy seemed as alert and active as ever, and I decided that he had just had a touch of the fish flu. Certain that the crisis was past, I put the fish and his near-death experience out of mind.
Until early the next morning when Wesley woke me just after sunrise. “Mommy, Crispy’s floating again. I think he died again.”
“He didn’t die yesterday,” I said sleepily, dragging myself out of bed. “He was just…sick.”
When I got to the kitchen, I saw that Crispy was indeed once again floating on his side at the surface. A layer of fish food at the top of the water told me that Wesley had decided that Crispy was hungry.
After tapping the bowl a few times to try to revive him, I picked up the bowl for the second time and started down the hall toward the bathroom. And once again, before reaching our destination, Crispy somehow resuscitated himself and began swimming happily around the bowl.
This scenario played itself out many more times over the week that followed, with Crispy being revived before reaching the bathroom. Wesley found the situation humorous, but I was beginning to have less than charitable thoughts for the annoying little beast.
Finally one day, it seemed that my ill-willed thoughts had stuck, and we made it all the way to the bathroom. As Wesley and I stood on either side of the toilet, Crispy still floated, eyes and mouth gaping. I looked down at Wesley, wondering what he was feeling. “Any last words for Crispy?”
More glibly than I expected, he grinned and said, “Bye, Crispy.”
Stifling a chuckle, I repeated, “Bye, Crispy,” and tipped the contents of the bowl into the toilet.
To our horror, as soon as Crispy and his fishbowl water hit the toilet water, that stupid fish once again came back to life and began swimming frantically around and around the toilet. Suddenly concerned for the welfare of his pet, Wesley yelled, “Mommy! Crispy’s going to drown! We have to save him!”
“He’s not going to drown,” I said, frantically looking around for something to use to scoop the goldfish from his toilet tomb. Quickly sticking the fishbowl under the faucet in the sink, I turned the water on and grabbed one of Wesley’s tub toys and tried to catch Crispy.
After several unsuccessful attempts and a lot of splashed water, I managed to capture him and plop him back in the fishbowl. Wesley clapped his hands and shouted, “We did it, Mommy! We saved Crispy!”
“Yeah,” I responded, holding my hands dripping with toilet water over the sink. “We did it.”
Satisfied that he’d played a part in saving the life of one of God’s creatures, Wesley darted out of the bathroom, off to play with his Legos. I glared at Crispy, who seemed to be no worse for wear after his ordeal. I shook my head and said, “Are you sure you’re not a catfish, because you seem to have nine lives.”
A couple days later, I came into the kitchen to find Crispy once again floating on his side. Feeling no sense of urgency, I tapped on the bowl to try to rouse him. When that didn’t work, I sprinkled a little food in his bowl, for when…or if…he woke up, and went about my business.
A few hours later, Crispy was still floating sideways, his food untouched, and he seemed somehow a bit pale. I felt a slight unexpected twinge of sadness as I realized that this time, Crispy was really gone.
I went into the living room where Wesley was watching a dinosaur video. Although I hated to disturb him, I thought he’d want to know. “Wesley, I’m afraid that Crispy is dead.”
In true Wesley fashion, he slapped his forehead and said, “Again?”
A wry smile tugged at my lips. “This time he’s really, really dead. Do you want to help me get rid of him?”
Without taking his eyes off the TV, he said, “No.”
“Okay.”
One last time, I carried the fishbowl down the hallway to the bathroom. I looked down at the lifeless fish floating on top of the water. “You were a good little fish, Crispy. I hope we gave you a happy life. It sure lasted longer than I expected it to.”
Swallowing hard, I emptied the fishbowl into the toilet. When Crispy continued to float lifelessly, I reached over and flushed the toilet. “Goodbye, Crispy.”
