When I was growing up, I so badly wanted a dog. I was never a cat person but loved dogs. I would torture my brother with a photo of an English Bull dog from a children’s book (he would cry every time he saw it) and that’s the kind of doggie I wanted. Naturally!
But instead, I had a large pink stuffed dog and a smaller brown stuffed dog growing up. They were my constant companions. Plastic eyes, stitching nose but they didn’t bark or follow me around.
My parents excuse to my brother and I was, who is going to take care of the dog when we are on vacation? We work, the dog will be lonely at home all day. Who’s going to take the dog out for walks every day? “WE WILL”, we would scream, but my parents knew better, and I was too young and too naïve to realize, you could just get a fence LOL.
My brother and I begged for a pet and in the end my parents settled on a fish. Yup, orange goldfish. I think I had one of those beta fish too at one point. You know the flowy ones, that if they are put in a bowl with another fish will destroy them. Over the years we went through many fish, found them mainly floating on the surface of the bowl after a few weeks. They would get the ick and we would know.
Fish and Chip
The fish I had the longest were the one’s my roommate and I won at the NY State Fair in Syracuse. As part of our orientation week, LeMoyne took us to the state fair. We played that fair game where you throw ping pong balls at the small fishbowls lined up and if you get it in the bowl you get the fish. Well, we won two. Back to the dorm they came, 2 plastic bags with water and fish and one bowl. Naturally, they needed names. We mulled it over and they were crowned “Fish & Chip”. Of course, based on my fishistory (fish history), we didn’t expect them to live long.
If I remember correctly, and Carmela maybe you can refresh my memory, I think one ended up on the floor of our dorm room maybe during a water change and bowl cleaning, oops, but OH the resilience! These fish would ride back and forth 2.5 hours for every holiday break during our sophomore year. They lived, for 2 years, I think. When I was back home at my parents’ house, we had them on the coffee table, mainly so someone would remember to feed them. One day we came home, and Fish had taken an Olympic size jump, outside the bowl (sniff), after that Chip wasn’t long for the world. We had a ceremony in the back yard, of course.
So today, my brother has 2 dogs in his house, and I have yet to have a pet. Partly, because I’m allergic and would need a hypoallergenic dog, which my brother does have, so I’ve been lucky to pet sit on occasion, and I was travelling a lot for work and didn’t want to leave a dog home alone (sound familiar? Mom? Dad?).
But now that we are in our “new normal” you never know.
Maybe I should WOMENT UP and at least get a fish?
Omg… I was literally just telling G about this! He was gob-smacked that we didn’t have a tank and filter and a sunken ship!!!
Ahhhh, those were the days! I remember making a huge sun for our window to combat the grey skies from January til April!
Fish and Chip got me ready to forget the feral cat we adopted last summer. I remember to feed it every other day-ish. I don’t feel badly bc I’m not actually feeding the cat we adopted, but another one. I have no idea if it has a home or not, but I put the good out and it eats it. I also have no idea where the cat we adopted went… wondering if I can get my ‘donation’ back since we still have a chipmunk problem. 🧐
This is awesome! How funny, I must’ve felt the Fish & Chip vibes!!!!