First Pet... Horror...

As children, most of us grow up with a love for animals and at some point grows a desire to own a pet. “Mommy, can we please have a puppy?” “Dad, can we have a horse?” Put on your best puppy dog eyes, poke out your lower lip, and talk in your best innocent baby voice and you were well on your way to getting what you wanted. Most parents would say: “Yes of course, so long as you take care of it.” Unfortunately for me, it wasn’t as simple as just asking my parents for a pet. I had to abide by their rules, likes, and dislikes.

My siblings and I wanted either a dog or a cat. Sadly, dogs were out because my mom hates dogs. She would say she only mildly dislikes them because of their stinky breath, smelly fur, and disgusting bowel movements. I, however, have observed her with dogs and know her dislike is much more than mild. She HATES them. She will put on a good show if we are at a friend’s house and they have a dog, laughing it off when the dog licks her too much. But they don’t see her in the car after we leave, slathering on the hand sanitizer and mumbling about stupid dumb dogs.

And cats were not welcome in our house because my dad is allergic to cats. Enough said. As much as me and my siblings wanted a dog or a cat it was not going to happen. No matter how forlornly we looked at the pictures of the different breeds of dogs and cats in the library books about pets and how to care for them, it was an impossibility. Huskies and Golden Retrievers were our dog of choice. (It has been so long ago I don't even remember what type of cat we wanted.)

My parent's idea of a first pet was something small and manageable that didn’t smell, mess up the carpets, or scratch the furniture.

You guessed it. It was a fish. Now let me say that the first pet in our house wasn’t even mine. It was my older brother’s. Mr. Goldfish was named Jimmy. And of course, if you get one child a fish, you have to get the others one of their own also. So that’s exactly what happened. My mom took me and my other brother straight to the pet store. There we picked out our fish. My brother chose a small silver goldfish with a bluish color to its scales and I chose a small golden orange colored goldfish. As we took them home in those clear plastic bags, we were smiling ear to ear.

It was just before bedtime when we put our two fish inside the large fish tank with Mr. Jimmy. The whole family gathered around the tank as we dropped each fish in the water. We said goodnight and went to bed. Happy thoughts of little fishies danced in our heads as we lay down to sleep.

The next morning I woke up before anyone else. A small child so eager to feed her pet breakfast for the first time. But as I pulled a chair from the dining room table up to the stand where the fish tank sat (I was too short to reach it), I was not prepared for the horror that awaited me. I stood on my tiptoes peering over the top of the tank.

Fish parts floated at the top of the water. The small silvery blue fish of my brother’s was floating belly up with one fin missing. My fish was nowhere to be seen (at least not in one piece). In the midst of this chaotic scene was Mr. Jimmy, my older brother’s fish, swimming along as if nothing was wrong. I honestly don’t recall what happened after this. Maybe seeing the aftermath of Mr. Jimmy eating the other fish was so traumatic that I completely blocked it out of my memory. My dad, of course, cleaned everything up and that was the end of our fish adventures for a while. Needless to say, I did not ask for a pet again for a very long time...