Several weeks ago, I was coming home from some evening engagement. It was after dark. As I was getting out of my truck, someone yelled at me. I was quite startled. In the darkness, two men started walking toward me, asking me if I lived here. I was pretty sure they were going to kill me: my truck and house keys were in my hand… there were two of them and one of me… no one else was around…
But then the guy who yelled at me said he had some fish in an aquarium at home that had outgrown the tank and he wondered if he could put them in my pond. My body was flooded with adrenaline, so I had trouble answering. I told him most aquarium fish would not survive the winter. He said he thought his fish would. Not wanting to anger my potential murderer, I agreed to take his fish.
That was the last I heard of it.
Two nights ago at 9:30, there was a loud and abrupt knocking at my door. I was pretty sure whoever was on the other side of the door was going to kill me: hardly anyone knocks on my door… and who knocks at 9:30pm? But it might have been my neighbor. He sometimes comes over to tell me something important. I opened the door, and it was those two guys. The yelling man had a tiny fishbowl in his hands with three enormous goldfish in it. I was flooded with adrenaline, so I don’t really remember what we said to each other. I thanked him and closed the door.
As I thought about it, I wondered if those were the big fish that were stolen a while back. Why would he steal my fish and then give them back to me? Is it some convoluted plot to murder me? But as I looked at them in the light yesterday, I saw that they weren’t my old fish. They have different markings.
In the end, it was just some yelling guy who scares me that wanted to find a new home for his fish. Thanks, yelling guy.
It was hard to get a picture of them. They’re all comet goldfish, and they all have orange and white on them. Here are two:
This one is easily my favorite of the three new fish. It has interesting markings, and a beautifully long tail:
Wow! They are really pretty! Maybe he is the goldfish thief, but he just steals from some people and gives to others – in kind of a messed-up Robin Hood kind of way.
Gross side note: could you eat a goldfish if you had to? Not in a ‘drunk bet’ kind of way, but a ‘clean and cook’ way. If so, you’ve got a feast.
2 x “HA!” today, Lauren – way to go, girl!
My dad, like his mother before him, is losing pigment on parts of his body. Maybe he is really a goldfish?
Awww….they’re just lovely!! I’m so glad they have a new nice home! They look really happy & appear to be getting along just swimmingly with all the others!
I guess the owner(s) could have just thrown them in the pond without asking, or tried flushing them down the toilet….although that would have surely caused a clog with those guys. They must be deceit folk afterall, and maybe just a little hard of hearing.
(But I know just what you mean about the fear. I’ve had several ‘”This is it” moments myself.)
Thanks, Yelling Guy! They’re beautiful!
Aha! Now I know who to borrow a goldfish from in the future when I want to let students see racing red blood cells in capillaries of a gorgeous broad fish tail fin. It really is a cool “line up to look in the microscope while I wrap the rest of this fish in a wet paper towel so it can still breathe out of the water…for a while” thing – but few fish actually volunteer for it. [I perceive much gasping and “whew!”ing from them afterward. ‘Course, it could be my imagination…]
Translation? “Yes, they are indeed lovely additions to your pond. Do they get along well with their predecessors?”