- November 23, 2024
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My son, Jackson, came home from Cub Scouts with a pet fish in a plastic bag a few months ago. The big smile on his face told me that I had not done a good enough job brainwashing him that pets are bad. When my kids start begging for pets, I take them to the ocean, open my arms wide and say, “See, kids? All of these birds and crabs and fish are our pets!”
I learned from How to Be a Dad School that if you act as happy as possible — clownishly animated — kids believe whatever you say.
“Let’s name them!” I say, pointing to a gaggle, flock or pack of pelicans. “There’s George, John, Ringo and Paul, and she looks like Yoko Ono.”
Jackson puts his hands on his hips, his eyelids half closed, as if he's trying to make me disappear.
Fine.
We bought a fish bowl, some purple pebbles and tossed in a rubber frog (also a great substitute pet, I might add) from one of the bins of neglected, small toys. We bought a vial of cleaner that turns tap water into something that won’t kill a fish.
Red Fin is his or her name. I tried to tell Jackson not to name him or her. It’s best to not get too attached because it only makes it harder when you have to make that trip to market and sell it when it gets nice and fat.
And yet, I find myself reminding Jackson to feed Red Fin. I change the water. My wife raises her eyebrow, but my excuse is legitimate: It's too easy to make a mess with it, so I'll just do it. When we went out of town for a few days, I realized that this could be the end. But me, my heroic self and I saved the day and arranged for a fish sitter. (Thanks, Mallorie.)
Every morning when I wake up, I expect the fish will be floating upside down, with X’s instead of eyes. But as I type this, Red Fin is resting on his frog pillow, about to sleep on his bed of pebbles. And it’s a wee bit more peaceful in the house. All that floating, looking around, and, I suppose, all that slow drinking of altered water.
I guess I’ll have to wait for another day to write that fateful column about the dramatic rite of passage most people go through: the death of the first pet fish. The discovery. The tears. The burial in the porcelain sea. And finally, as I’m sure will be the case in this family, the replacement.
But don’t think for a second that I’m getting soft on pets. I like to think of my kids as my pets, so I’m covered. And I know they don’t need any pets themselves because I didn’t have any when I was their age. And look how well I turned out.
