Speaking of Fish

Meet Marco Polo, our newest acquisition. He’s a little nicer to look at than Monday’s Mr. Blobfish.

When my daughter went to her water polo banquet the other night, she texted me halfway through the festivities:

I won a new pet fish.

Oh, great, I thought. I hoped that was some kind of code name for the awards they were handing out. A few moments later she sent a new text:

What should we name it?

Good grief. What was she thinking? What were the banquet organizers thinking? I pictured her coming home with some half dead feeder fish in a baggie. The poor thing would probably be gone by morning. I decided not to respond to her text. Better put off naming it, just in case.

I went to the garage and dug out our fish bowl. We’ve had two bettas that lived long happy betta lives, but the bowl has been empty for a while. My daughter texted me again:

Coach Kristy thinks we should name it Kristy.

I thought about texting back that we should name it Stop Texting Me Or You’ll Lose Your Cell Phone Privileges, but that would have taken too long. I now had a fish bowl to clean out. Urgh. If it was still swimming in the morning, I’d go buy gravel.

When the banquet was over, my husband arrived with daughter and Marco Polo, who to my relief was a hardy-looking betta. The fish came complete with a bowl tied with a fancy ribbon that included food and feeding instructions. My daughter had already removed the floating candle that topped off the arrangement. I’ve never been a fan of using live fish for centerpieces, but I have to say Marco Polo looked pretty well attended to.

Now our pets represent four animal classes: fish, bird, reptile, mammal. Make that five, if you count the spiders in the bathroom.