The Goldfish Tales

Whenever there is any sort of carnival in town we always take the kiddo. She makes sure of it, too. Where ever we drive there she is in the backseat scoping out the area. She especially loves it when we're driving on the expressway so she can survey the dry valley land for any indication of ferris wheels, roller coasters, and waving over-sized flags filling the sky.

In January we took her to a local church carnival that had more over-priced games than actual kiddie rides. And of course there was a ball tossing game to win goldfish. It was inevitable. Mr. Winey and myself didn't think she'd actually win a goldfish tossing those hollow bouncy balls in a tiny fish bowl. But on the fourth try she proved us wrong. Not only did she win on her fourth try, she won on the fifth try as well. Luckily, there was an older kid who tried his hand at winning with thirty-five losses and we offered him one of our fish. The kiddo wasn't so happy but the carny distracted her with a new, malnourished goldfish.

It only took five days before Goldfish Winey (insert out surname here) died. Ugh, I couldn't let my baby girl know because just a few weeks before our dog, Adagio Amadeo, died. So instead I called my sister and had her rush to PetsMart to purchase a replacement. I texted her a pic and everything to match our belly up pet. In the meantime we distracted the kiddo with games and books and when my sister arrived Mr. Winey put our baby girl in the shower so I could clean out the tank and replace Goldfish Winey.

Another four days passed and Goldfish Winey #2 was belly up yet again! I know, I know. I promise I didn't overfeed him. I'm thinking it was the kiddo since the fish was still a novelty and she loved watching him chow down those flakes all the time. Here we go again. We dropped off the kiddo with Grandma Nana and made a trip to Wal-Mart to replace Goldfish Winey yet again.

Three months have passed and Goldfish Winey #3 is still alive... until he isn't that night and is floating sideways swaying with the ripples made by the filter. Sigh. This is getting ridiculous. I took off to PetsMart the next morning to get ANOTHER Goldfish Winey (this is number four by the way) and set everything up before Little Miss Diva woke up. She didn't notice anything other than a black spot he had on his tail (upper caudal fin for those of you technical punks) and asked "why is his belly so very white?" I figured not being in the sun would turn the fish white anyway so I went with that.

If you've been following along with my goldfish journey on Twitter then I'm pretty sure you're familiar on what happened next just last week when Goldfish Winey #4 passed on. Poor little fucker became so fat he got stuck between the fake aquarium plant and the glass and drowned. *gigglesnort*

This time, my baby girl noticed he was gone and asked what happened? She looked like she was about to cry so I told her I took him to PetsMart so they could clean him because he was getting so diry. It worked. When I came home with a shiny new goldfish sans black tail spot, she was excited! Phew. On that same trip, I also bought an "allergy eater" so I don't have to keep cleaning out the tank every two weeks. Even with a filter those damn fish are so dirty.

So here we are today. We have Goldfish Winey #5, Sunbright (another goldfish we bought as a companion between Goldfish Winey #2 and #3), and Strawberry our allergy eater, uh, algae eater. You'll also be glad to know I moved the plant over so we don't have anymore mishaps with overgrown goldfish. And if anymore fish die I'm simply going to fess up and tell the kid the truth. No more trips to the pet store for this winey mamma!