And the word is... Fish

"Just keep swimmin'! Just keep swimmin'! Just keep swimmin' swimmin' swimmin'!!"

Another little tid bit about me: I have an aquarium.... and one fish. I have a blue Africa cichlid named April. Why? Well, I'm glad you asked!


So I used to have three cichlids: yellow, orange, and blue. I like to name my fish based on appareance, personality, or in this case, as a group. So, I have April, May, and June. How original, huh? The pictures below aren't my fish... but in case you wanted a visual:

April

May

June

Anyways, I had these fish right? Well, this one time, I went to Brazil... actually, that has happened 4 times - I'll tell you about those trips some other day soon... and left my dearest mother in charge of feeding said fish while I spent the summer down there. I come back a month or two later... to find I now only had April and June... May was no longer on the calendar. I cut my losses and got over it. "It's only a fish" I told myself, "It's only one fish."

That's about the time my best friend called and said that her family was headed down to South Carolina to visit some family and asked if I would like to join. Who wouldn't want to go down for a long summer's weekend to stay with people they have never met in strange homes that happen to be surrounded by water and thus creating an atmosphere similar to... oh I don't know... the Atlantic Ocean? Seriously, down there, you have to wear scuba gear just to get to your car in the mornings. Anyways, like I said, who wouldn't want to go? So, not 24 hours after landing on US soil after about 2 months in Brazil, I packed a little bag and was headed down to South Carolina. The trip, let's just say, was unforgettable and will also be given a blog entry soon. But now, back to fish.

I come home a few days later and I walk into my room. What do my eyes behold? A single, blue Cichlid swimming around my tank. Only a blue one. "But you had a blue and orange fish when you left!", you say. Yes. I had two... at this pont, standing in my room after a summer of travelling, I now had only one. April. The reason?

As you may recall, my dear mother was charged with feeding my fish whilst I was traveling. Unfortunately, there was something that kept her from being able to carry out this task: my room decorations. You see, back home, I had a sweet overhang that was over top of my desk. It was a frame of bamboo with greens and flowers and all kinds of mess. I even had a few fake animals in it, like dragonflies and birds, and .....snakes. I had two rubber snakes from the Dollar Tree mixed into the bunch. I don't have a good pic, but for illustration purposes, here it is:

Even though it doesn't jive with my layout, I made this pic extra large... just so you may possibly perhaps be able to make out the snakes...

Mom is so terrified of snakes that, apparently, she couldn't force herself to go underneath the overhang in fear that one.. OR BOTH!... of the fake, rubber, $1.00 snakes would drop down and get her. So... to protect herself from harm, she had to make the decision to forget about my fish. Now, in her defense, she says she told my little brother to feed them for her/me. Well... do you have a little brother? Right.

So now, it is just April and I. Unfortuantely what inspired this extrememly brief (har har) blog is that while a legitamte phobia of fake snakes was the underlying reason for my fish deaths, the employees at the Wal-Mart on Route 29 in Charlottesville, Va do not have the same excuse. I checked and there were no snakes, fake or otherwise, dangling over the fish tanks to warrant my ability to take these pictures. Be warned, though  not in good resolution, they are extremely graphic and rather disturbing.





My! What a pretty skeleton you have!

One plus? Fish like this one get a nonstop buffet.

Excuse me, sir? I'd like to buy that one. Oh he's dead?

One of the most disturbing. See that dirt stuff under the 4 or 5 living fish? Not dirt. Nope. That'd be disolving fish! Yeah... it's like mud... just made of fish... and bones... and guts... and scales.

An entire school of ghostfish...er I mean goldfish.

 Now, I understand that at times, fish die and when you are the largest company, with the most employees, in the world, it is hard to find workers to do their jobs. I understand, Wal-Mart! I really do! However, just so you know, I not only talked 7 customers (three different groups) out of purchasing your fish, I am also writing to corporate to be sure they know how you treat your living merchandise and the customers wanting to buy those products. I, along with numerous shoppers were mortified to see that every tank had at least 5-10 dead fish. Something is wrong with that...

And the Bettas? I understand they are stocked on shelves in every store. I know about them, and how they live. I owned one (until my father killed it... Dang. Why do my mommy and daddy keep killing my aminals???) when I was in middle school. However, I can't help but get sooo irritated when I walk in a store and see those poor fish trapped in tuppaware dishes, stocked on a shelf like cereal, or lightbulbs. Not cool.




So there, it is. Some of my experiences with fish. The good and the bad. I also just thought about the time that a pet store's infected fish killed off my entire tank... oh boy.... there's another blog idea!! Heyo!

Well, until next time, just keep swimmin', swimmin, swimmin'!!